Peter Finer 2013 catalogue

38 & 39 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6DF ENGLAND tel: +44 (0) 20 7839 5666 fax: +44 (0) 20 7839 5777 from usa & canada tel / fax: 1 800 270 7951 (24 hours) email: gallery@peterfiner.com www.peterfiner.com

We number the following Institutions among our valued clients GREAT BRITIAN

The Victoria and Albert Museum The Aberdeen Art Gallery The Royal Armouries

The National Army Museum The Royal Naval Museum

The National Museum of Scotland

The Royal Scots Regimental Museum UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Cleveland Museum of Art The Higgins Armory Museum The Wadsworth Atheneum

The Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester EUROPE

Deutsches Klingenmuseum, Solingen Dresdener R端stkammer

Landesmuseum f端r Kultur- und Landesgeschichte, Schloss Tirol Stedelijke Musea Kortrijk IRELAND

The National Museum of Ireland CANADA

The Glenbow Museum ASIA

Chi Mei Culture Foundation, Taiwan

Introduction Welcome to this, our tenth catalogue. It has been three years since our last publication, testament to the difficulty of finding exceptional items in our chosen field. It is now some years since we first opened our London premises in Duke Street, St James’s, with the dayto-day business being run by the younger generation, Redmond and Roland, now ably assisted by Anna Tomaszewska. The stock of our family business, with the three of us so deeply involved, inevitably represents our individual interests and tastes – this catalogue is a reflection of that and covers a wide variety of periods and cultures. There is still a strong European focus and we again aim for a consistent standard, with rarity and condition both being paramount and the great majority of our offerings being sourced privately.

While this year’s catalogue has fewer items offered than in previous years, the quality of the items has never been higher.

We shall be exhibiting most of the items in this catalogue in our gallery in London in December, then in New York at the Winter Antiques Show and subsequently in Palm Beach and Miami shortly afterwards. In March we exhibit at Maastricht at the European Fine Art Fair. The dates of all the antique shows at which we exhibit, listed in the back of this catalogue, are also regularly updated on our website and we are always happy to send complimentary tickets to our established clients.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our cataloguers, especially Ian Eaves and Nicholas McCullough, and, for their magisterial entries of the Alexandria sword and the claymore respectively, Clive Thomas and Tony Willis. We are also most grateful to Ian Bottomley for his scholarly description of the Japanese face mask, the ressei sōmen. Particular thanks are also due to Yannick Chastang, Bernard Dragesco and Stuart Pyhrr. Especial thanks are due to Chris Challis, who for the tenth time has spent many long hours taking photo­ graphs of armour that glints and reflects, swords which refuse to remain where placed, and pistols which refuse to stay in focus – all our catalogues are a testimony to both his skill and patience. This is the fourth catalogue that David Bonser has designed so cleverly for us, working at weekends with a care and awareness unmatched in the field. We would also very much like to thank Nickki Eden for over fourteen years of patient and careful management of our database and Dr Paula Turner for her editorial skills.

We hope you enjoy this catalogue – there are many exceptional pieces, each one unique, and we feel that this collection of items, which represents thousands of miles of travelling ensures that this is one of the very best catalogues we have ever produced. As always, if we can help in any way with the formation or development of a collection, its conservation, maintenance or display, please do let us know. We have wide experience gained over many years of working in the field of antique arms and armour and are more than happy to share it with you.

peter finer

redmond finer

roland finer

The Display of your Collection and our Specialist Services We share the view held by the great institutional collections throughout the world that the finest antique arms and armour are works of art. In the periods of their use they were revered as items of undeniable prestige, as much for their aesthetic qualities as for their technical excellence, and were borne as emblems of taste and wealth, as much as of power.

Today, we and the owners of these works are privileged to be their custodians.

Peter Finer is pleased to offer specialist research, cataloguing, photography, installation and lighting services worldwide. With our many years of experience in creating temporary exhibitions at fine art fairs both in Europe and throughout the United States of America, permanent displays in the homes and corporate offices of our clients and the ever-changing exhibition at our London gallery, we are ideally placed to offer advice on planning an installation, or to organise the work on your behalf.

Whether you own a select small group of arms and armour in an apartment home, or whether you have a collection built over a lifetime, we will be delighted to assist in its presentation, its conservation, the creation of a photographic record for insurance purposes or even in the production of a scholarly printed catalogue of your collection. Our team will readily travel to any location; they include a lighting consultant formerly working on gallery displays at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a team of specialists of exceptional experience. We are also able to offer expert conservation and restoration services to museum standard.

We recognise that the play of light on metal surfaces can restore life and vibrancy to these ancient artefacts, be they either bright steel, glittering gold, silver or patinated. An imaginative and carefully planned lighting arrangement will bring forward the sculptural beauty of the pieces we present, edged weapons and armour in particular. We are pleased to offer an unlimited range of bespoke mounts which can facilitate both free-standing desk displays, or ‘floating’ wall-mounting. Full armours will be correctly assembled by our specialists and create a unique sense of presence within any setting. We offer mannequins, either neutral or lifelike, and even equestrian models in a variety of positions, all of which can be created individually to fit your armour and provide a professional display. Antique firearms may be arranged in cases, viewable from all sides, or even displayed in the manner of a traditional castle gunroom as required.

We are additionally pleased to offer advice on a climate-controlled environment for your collection and on periodic maintenance and conservation. Naturally we always recommend specialist assistance with all matters of conservation and restoration.

A bound and lavishly illustrated catalogue of your collection will provide you with not only an un-rivalled permanent reference work but will importantly form an indelible record for the security of your collection. The Peter Finer team of specialists are at your disposal.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. A Swiss Knightly Shield Bearing the Arms of Schorpp von Freudenberg, Late 14th Century

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2. An Italian Medieval Sword with an Arabic Inscription from the Arsenal of Alexandria, Early 15th Century, the Inscription Dated 1432

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3. An Italian Renaissance Hand-and-a-half Sword, circa 1490–1500

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4. A Crossbowman’s Quiver, Italian or German, circa 1540–50

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5. A Scottish Highland Claymore, circa 1574

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6. A German Sabre, Saxon, circa 1590

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7. A North Italian Close Helmet for the Foot Tourney, Milan, circa 1580–90

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8. An Italian Armour for the Foot Tourney by the ‘Master of the Castle’, Milan, circa 1590–1600

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9. A Pair of German Wheellock Holster Pistols bearing the Arms of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Maker’s Mark of Christoph Dressler, Dresden, Dated 1596

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10. A German Swept-hilt Rapier, circa 1620

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11. A French Casket, Laque incrusté, after the Japanese Raden and Nashiji Traditions, circa 1625

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12. A German Flintlock Breechloading Break-action Sporting Gun for Ball or Shot (Kippbüchse) by George Grebe, Kassel, circa 1690

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13. A Japanese Face Mask, Ressei Somen, circa 1700–20

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14. An Italian Breechloading Repeating Flintlock Gun

by Michele Lorenzoni, Florence, circa 1700

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15. A German Hunting Sword, Fromery Workshops, Berlin, circa 1750

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16. A French Louis XVI Dress Smallsword and Scabbard, Mounted in Gold, Diamonds and Enamel, Paris, circa 1784

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17. An English Smallsword with Cased Cut-steel Hilt

by Matthew Boulton, circa 1795

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18. A French Épée de Luxe with Gold and Porcelain Hilt, Presented to King Fernando VII of Spain, Gold Maker’s Mark of Antoine-Modeste Fournera, the Presentation Inscription Dated 1816

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19. A Pair of Spanish Percussion Chiselled and Damascened Pistols and their Accessories, of Exhibition Quality, the Workshops of Eusebio Zuloaga, Eibar or Madrid, circa 1847–55

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20. A Spanish Exhibition Sword and Scabbard, Chiselled, Repoussée and Damascened by Eusebio Zuloaga, in the 16th-century Mannerist Fashion, circa 1850–55

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1

A Swiss Knightly Shield Bearing the Arms of Schorpp von Freudenberg, Late 14th Century Few objects convey more vividly an impression of the romance and brilliant colour of the so-called ‘Golden Age of Chivalry’ than the heraldically emblazoned knightly shield. Prior to the adoption of full plate armour, the shield constituted the mounted warrior’s chief form of rigid defence.

Today, however, this once commonplace piece of military equipment is represented by only a handful of examples, most of which owe their survival to having been hung in churches as memorials to their owners.

It is likely that our example was at one time preserved as a memorial to a member of the noble Basel family of Schorpp von Freudenberg whose arms were, in heraldic terms, or, a scorpion sable.

The letter B associated with the swan’s head crest may perhaps have alluded to the city of Basel.

Preserved in the Städtisches Waisenhause Kirche of that city, formerly the Carthusian Monastery of Klein-Basel, are a series of funerary shields, including a circular one bearing the same arms as those found on our example and surmounted by a helm with a crest also decorated with a black scorpion on gold. An inscription shows this shield to have served as a memorial to Junker Apollinarius Schorpp von Freudenberg who died in 1521. Our shield however, clearly dates from an earlier period. Attached to its rear are the remains of a guige for hanging it around the neck, also of enarmes and an accompanying quilted pad for carrying it on the forearm. These show it to have been made for real use.

The earliest knightly shields were those of the large, so-called ‘kite-shaped’ form, first seen in illustrations from the middle of the 11th century. From the middle of the following century, however, their originally rounded tops increasingly gave way to flatter ones which soon

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after the beginning of the 13th century were adopted as the norm. The transition is well seen in the earliest surviving knightly shield, that of a member of the Brienz family formerly preserved in the church of St Lazarus, Seedorf, Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, and now in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zurich (no. lm. 3405), which is thought to have been made in the late 12th century, but subsequently modified in the earliest years of the 13th century, from its original round-topped form to the then more fashionable flat-topped one. A somewhat later shield of a member of the Raron family in the Museum of Schloss Valeria, Sitten, Switzerland, is of the triangular form that became fashionable in the first half of the 14th century. After the middle of the century, however, this new type gradually reduced in size and acquired slightly concave sides, giving it the classic ‘heater’ shape still popular in an heraldic context today.

A remarkable series of such shields formerly preserved in the St Elizabethkirche, Marburg, Hesse, Germany, and now belonging to the Marburg Universitätsmuseum, date from the second half of the 14th century. Closely resembling them in outline is the celebrated shield of Edward, the Black Prince, in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, forming part of his funerary achievement of 1376. Another, however, in Westminster Abbey, formerly suspended over the tomb erected to Henry V in 1422, is of particular interest in that it, like ours, is of broader proportions than its predecessors and descends to a gently rounded point at its lower edge.

Although the ‘heater-shaped’ form of shield remained popular into the earliest years of the 15th century, it was gradually supplanted by one of a more rectangular outline first introduced

around the middle of the 14th century, which curved forward at its lower end and was deeply notched or ‘bouched’ at its right side to accommodate a lance. Several examples of this later type have been recorded, including one from Burg Reifenstein, South Tirol, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (no.

1930.30.101), which bears the arms of a member of the Maissau family, and another five in the same collection (nos 25. 26.1–3 and 5–6), at one time over-painted with the arms of the Behaim von Schwarzburg family of Nuremberg.

Our shield, although clearly to be seen as a member of the earlier ‘heater-shaped’ group, anticipates in its vertical curvature one of the main features of this later group. A similarly curved shield, formed like ours with a gently rounded point to its lower edge, appears as early as 1375 in the monumental brass of Bishop Robert Wyville in Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, while 8

another is depicted in the round as part of a late 14th-century ivory chessman of English origin, now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (no. 1968.68.95).

Our fine shield is now the only known surviving example of this important late 14th-century trans­itional type, dating from a time when the Swiss, through their triumphs in the battles of Fraubrunnen in 1376, Sempach in 1386, Naefels in 1388 and Vögelinsech in 1402, successfully established themselves as an independent nation.

Height 22½ in Width 21¾ in Provenance Julius Böhler, Private Collection, about 1900 Peter Finer, 1997 catalogue, no. 4 Private collection, Germany

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An Italian Medieval Sword with an Arabic Inscription from the Arsenal of Alexandria, Early 15th Century, the Inscription Dated 1432 This beautifully proportioned sword is historically important as it belongs to the well-known group of European knightly swords that bear Arabic inscriptions from the Arsenal of Alexandria.

The members of this large group are known to have come to the Arsenal over a period of around seventy years, from about 1367 to 1436–7 in at least eleven separate bequests. We can tell, with reasonable certainty, just how the swords of a particular bequest came to be deposited in Egypt, as the inscriptions frequently mention dates or the names of individual emirs or sultans.

For example, some of the swords inscribed with the dates 1367–8 may have been captured in battle from the Crusaders who sacked Alexandria with such ferocity in 1365, while those dated 1427–8 may have been plunder from the Mamluk conquest of Cyprus in 1426.

High-quality knightly swords were held in the highest esteem by the ruling elites, and those which bear dates from 1419 are thought to have been diplomatic gifts for the renewal of a treaty signed five years earlier between Egypt and Cyprus. Finally, a few of the swords were given in tribute by a defeated and broken state to its conquerors. Our sword belongs to the latter category, and to what is thought to be the penultimate bequest, as it bears a very informative inscription dated 1432.

All of the swords known to have been bequeathed to the Arsenal in that year are easily recognised as belonging to a homogeneous ‘family’ as they have very similar physical characteristics.

They may be classified as belonging to Oakeshott’s type XIX, with the type’s prominent ricasso just below the hilt. Our sword is relatively light in

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weight, yet retains enough perceived weight in the blade to make a very effective cut, especially if used from horseback. The finger ring on the hilt is a particularly interesting feature, designed as a rudimentary protection for the swordsman when he held the sword with his forefinger clasped around the crossguard in what has become known as the ‘Italian grip’. This method was used to facilitate better control of the sword and the associated finger ring – first known as early as the 1340s – was probably the first in a series of incremental steps towards the complex hilts of the 16th century. These rings appear on four of the eight known members of this 1432 bequest.

The very light blades of this particular group show a complex geometry. At the ricasso they have a broadly rectangular section with deeply incised grooves near the blunt edges, as well as a central fuller that runs to about a third of the total blade length. From the end of the ricasso the blade changes section to that of a flattened hexagon down to the centre of percussion or striking point (the part of the blade that offers the least vibration when struck) whereupon it continues to the tip with a lenticular section.

There is a distinctive maker’s mark at the end of the fuller that can be attributed to an Italian, probably Milanese, workshop. An almost identical mark can be seen on another sword of this group in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (no. 930.26.43).

The Arabic inscription has been engraved on both sides of the blade, within the ricasso, and shows that the sword was bequeathed to the Arsenal of Alexandria as a pious donation.

It reads, line by line, as follows: Side 1 (above): hubs al-malik al-ashrafī barsbīy cazza nasru-hu (bi-)khazā’in al-silāh al-mansūrah Side 2 (below): bi-thaghr sikandariyyah al-mahrās min mutahasili-hi fī shahr al-muharram sana sittah wa thalāthīn wa thamān-mi’ah This may be translated as follows, with any missing words from either the original Arabic or the translation shown in parentheses.

Side 1: Pious donation [of] the king al-Ashraf Barsbāy – may his victory be strengthened! – [in the] storeroom in the Hall of Victories . . .

Side 2: . . . in [the] frontier city [of] Alexandria the well-guarded. Of what he has acquired in [the] month of Muharram [in the] year six and thirty and eight hundred [1432 ad].

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Although seemingly concise, the text of this inscription sheds some light on a particular point in history, concerning the relationship between the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus and the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. Since the sacking of Alexandria by a Cypriot-led crusading force in 1365, the two kingdoms had maintained a strained relationship which was often punctuated with minor skirmishes and raids. Despite the relative calm of a non-aggression treaty that had been signed in 1414, the situation between the two states had deteriorated further by 1424.

In that year the Mamluk Sultan Barsbāy had sent a small raiding force of eight vessels towards Cyprus, which succeeded in pillaging the town of Limassol before returning to Egypt with plunder and captives. Another larger raid was successfully carried out in the following year and, sensing an easy target, the Sultan made plans for a full-scale invasion of the island under the pretext that a state of holy war existed between the two states.

In the first days of July 1426 a huge force of perhaps a hundred vessels and around 5,000 men landed near Limassol and advanced inland. Although initially slow to react, King Janus of Cyprus personally led his army to meet the invaders, and the two sides clashed near the village of Khirokitia (modern Choirokoitia) on 7 July. The Cypriots gained the upper hand initially, but threw away their advantage by failing to press the attack. Allowing themselves to be counter-attacked by the main Mamluk force, the Cypriots were swiftly routed and their king captured.

Janus was taken to Cairo in chains and forced to submit to the Sultan in the midst of his assembled captors. An enormous ransom was set for his release, along with several conditions and an ongoing tribute of 20,000 dinars, to be paid annually in cash and goods. Furthermore, Janus was to become a vassal of the Sultan and by the time he died in June 1432 he had nearly bankrupted his own coffers in his efforts to continue the tribute payments.

He was succeeded by his son, John II, who was determined to remain a good subject and maintain the payments to the Sultan.

When the Mamluk delegates arrived to collect the tribute in September 1432, they received many goods in lieu of the outstanding debt as well as items ‘in proportion to their position and rank’, according to the Egyptian chronicler Taghrī Birdī. Within about a week of their arrival back in Cairo, a small group of Italian swords – the very group to which our sword belongs – was bequeathed to the Arsenal of Alexandria as a religious donation. It seems highly probable that these swords had been gifts to the Egyptian delegates from the King of Cyprus. We know that the month of Muharram mentioned on the inscriptions of each of these swords began on 28 August 1432 and lasted for thirty days until 27 September of 12

that year. If the swords did indeed come to Egypt with the annual tribute, then the wording of the inscriptions seems to indicate that the delegates presented them to the Sultan upon their arrival.

The inscriptions on the eight known swords of this bequest are very similar and all begin with the Arabic word hubs. This implies that they served a higher purpose than mere decoration, as we know that some of the earlier bequests stated that these swords could be used as weapons of jihād, to defend the lands of Islam from attacks by the infidel western Franks. Some of the earlier inscriptions even suggested that the swords had been ‘made anew’ for this purpose. We do not know if they were subsequently used, but they remained part of the inventory of the Arsenal of Alexandria until some point after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Following this upheaval, it seems that most of the swords were taken to the Imperial Ottoman Arsenal in the former Byzantine church of Hagia Eirene in Constantinople, where most remained until at least the early 20th century until being transferred to the Askeri Museum in Istanbul where most of them are now preserved. One of the first things that one notices about our sword is the rich colour of its overall patina, which is a striking dark grey tinged with brown. Unlike some members of this small group of swords it has not been extensively cleaned, allowing the full range of colours from its long tenure at Hagia Eirene to remain.

Overall length 42⅞ in Blade length 36⅜ in Provenance The Arsenals of Alexandria and Hagia Eirene, Istanbul Sotheby’s, London, 20 November 1979, lot 129 Private collection, Germany

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3

An Italian Renaissance Hand-and-a-half Sword, circa 1490–1500 Niccolò Machiavelli, in his celebrated political treatise The Prince, completed by him in 1513 and eventually published in 1532, wrote in the opening lines of his dedication to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici (1492–1519):

Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight: whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness.

Our magnificent sword is one that would undoubtedly have been deemed ‘worthy of the greatness’ of any of the Renaissance princes. ‘As in all other fields of applied art,’ observed the late Dr John Hayward when writing of it some years ago, ‘the high point of hilt design, either as [a] ceremonial or fighting weapon, was reached during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century.’ ‘The excellence of the weapons of this period’, he went on to note, ‘is reflected in their superb proportions and exquisite decoration.’ Few could deny that our sword, with is elegant lines and rich ornament arranged in counter-changed panels of contrasting gold, silver and gilt copperalloy, fully satisfies both of these criteria.

Although it must be seen as likely from its superlative quality that our sword was intended primarily for ceremonial use, its design nevertheless accords in all essential respects with that of a practical fighting weapon. With its long hand-and-a-half grip enabling it to be wielded with either one or two hands, and its long, acutely pointed blade, our sword was suited to both cutting and thrusting. The pronounced medial ridge running down each side of the blade served to stiffen it in order that it might more readily penetrate any gaps that were to be found in the full plate armour favoured at that the time. Ridges of this kind appear to have 14

come into fashion around the middle years of 15th century, being found, for example, on the blades of several swords recovered from the River Dordogne near Castillon-la-Bataille, where they had been abandoned by English troops fleeing the victorious French army in 1453. From the evidence of such contemporary representations as those that appear in the illuminations of Tallhofer’s Fechtbuch of 1459, in the library of Schloss Ambras, near Innsbruck, and in a painting, The Coronation of the Virgin, in the Museo Civico, Pesaro, by Giovanni Bellini, of about 1474, it would seem likely that blades of this medially ridged pattern were very soon afterwards being fitted to the hand-and-a-half version of the type under discussion. Interestingly the illustrations just mentioned in both instances represent swords with hilts similar to that of our example excepting only that their pearshaped pommels are formed with transverse belts rather than flattened faces. Although it is unclear whether their long spatulate quillons are horizontally recurved in the manner of those of our sword, the fashion for such recurved quillons was nevertheless to become a popular one in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Surviving early Renaissance swords of a quality comparable to ours are few in number and invariably associated with persons of great

wealth and rank. Among the most celebrated of them is a splendid sword in the Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (no. hm.a36), identified in early inventories of the Saxon Electoral Armoury as that of Graf Leonhard von Görz (1440–1500). Aside from the fact that its pommel is of plummet-shaped rather than pear-shaped form, it shows a strong general resemblance to our sword. The presence on its blade of the inscriptions jesus maria and in eternvm, has led to the suggestion that it might perhaps have been given to von Görz at the time of his marriage to the Mantuan princess, Paola Gonzaga, daughter of Luigi III Gonzaga in 1478. Whether or not that is the case, it seems certain from its association with von Görz that the sword should be dated to a period before the time of his death in 1500.

Of perhaps even greater interest in this context is a splendid sword now in the Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Vienna (no. a.170) made for Maximilian I, King of Rome and later Holy Roman Emperor (1459–1519). Aside from its possession of a key-shaped pommel and straight rather than recurved quillons, it once again bears a striking resemblance to our sword. Its hilt, also of gilt copper-alloy, bears the inscription in dio amor which together with the representations of Amor and putti in the decoration of its blade has led to the suggestion that the sword was given to Maximilian at the time of his marriage to Bianca Maria, daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan in 1493/4. The possibility arises in that case that the sword was made in Milan, then the greatest of all European arms-producing centres.

Affording support for that view is the fact that a sword in the Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Brescia, very similar to ours other than in its possession of an elaborately chiselled pommel with scrolled margins, was stated by Hayward to be struck on its tang with the Sforza mark of a viper. Significant perhaps, is the decoration of the

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so-called ‘Martelli Mirror’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (no. 8717–1867), which like that of our sword involves gilt copper-alloy inlaid with silver and gold, and is thought to have been produced by the Milanese artist Caradosso Foppa (1452–1527) around 1495–1500.

Through a combination of their skill and inventiveness, the goldsmiths of Renaissance Italy brought to the decoration of arms a richness and vigour that clearly accorded with the spirit of the age. More than in any other period, the nobleman of the Renaissance, with his passion for pageantry and display looked to the contemporary craftsman to provide him with arms that could compete with or even exceed in splendour those of his political rivals.

The quillons of our sword, like its pommel, are divided into panels of various metals: seven on one face and five on the other.

The plaques are either chiselled in relief or engraved intaglio with conventional floral ornament. Each side of the cross is chiselled with the same plaited design as the edge of the pommel, while the tongue or langet, which was intended to cover the mouth of the scabbard, is chiselled with acanthus foliage issuing from a scallop shell and fleur-de-lis at its base. The purpose of this socket was the practical one of preventing water from seeping into the scabbard and so rusting the blade, should the sword be exposed to rain or condensation.

Hayward, in his assessment our sword, observed that although having affinities with that of Leonhard von Görz at Dresden, it excels it in richness and is the equal of the wedding sword of the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. It is tantalising, given its opulence, to speculate upon the identity of its original and obviously wealthy owner. Its elegant lines and rich ornament, coupled with its harmonious proportions make it a true masterpiece of the Renaissance: bella e graziosa – beautiful and gracious.

Overall length 45 in Blade length 35¼ in Provenance G. P. Jenkinson Collection Private collection, Germany

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A Crossbowman’s Quiver, Italian or German, circa 1540–50 The crossbow, in its hand-held form, was little used in Europe before the time of the Crusades.

The Byzantine Princess Anna Commena, writing in the years 1118–48, went so far as to describe it as ‘a weapon of the barbarians . . . a truly diabolical machine’: a view clearly shared by Pope Innocent II (1130–43) who in 1139 banned its use throughout Europe, declaring it ‘a weapon hateful to God and unfit to be made use of among Christians’.

His prohibition, however, like that issued by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) some three score years later, had little effect. As a result of improvements made over the succeeding years to the composition of the bow itself and to the design of the devices used to span or tension it, the crossbow became for a while the most powerful projectile weapon of the medieval battlefield. Although forced around 1500 to relinquish its military superiority to the increasingly effective handgun, it nevertheless remained popular as a sporting weapon for several centuries thereafter. While the traditions of the chase may to an extent have influenced its continuing use in that context, there is no denying that the ability of the crossbow to operate silently, and thus not scare away other game in the vicinity, as the use of firearms tended to do, was an advantage that the sportsman very soon learnt to appreciate.

It was indeed in its later years as a sporting weapon that the crossbow not only underwent its greatest technical refinement but also received in many cases its most elaborate and sophisticated orna­ment. Hunting was, of course, an activity of the social elite: one in which its participants would have endeavoured to convey to one another through the quality of their personal weapons and accessories something of their wealth, taste and position.

Our extremely rare quiver, with its fashionable Renaissance ornament, would undoubtedly have 20

impressed in such a context. The boldly roped turns at its upper and lower ends are of a kind commonly found on German and other northern European armours of the period 1520–50. The embossed classical mask that forms the central feature of it decoration, however, argues for a date towards the latter end of that period. While highrelief classical ornament in metal was already being produced in Italy as early as the 1530s, it was only in the 1540s that it began to acquire a more widespread popularity. From then on, classical masks tended to become an almost obligatory element in the designs of the widely circulated pattern books of the Italian, French and Flemish Mannerist artists of the period.

Although our quiver, with its tooled leather covering and embossed mounts, stands apart from most examples of its kind surviving today, contemporary illustrations suggest that others of a similarly impressive nature would also at one time have existed. A carved wooden crossbowman of about 1480 in the Bayerisches National Museum, Munich (no. 75/355), forming part of a group of figures from the Upper Rhine, representing the martyrdom of St Sebastian, carries a quiver that closely resembles ours in design, even to the extent of having a mount at its upper end that projects downwards as a tapering medial tongue embossed at its upper end with a grotesque mask. In addition two crossbowmen depicted in a manuscript illumination of Les Chroniques d’Angleterre, prepared for King Edward IV (1460/1–70 and 1471–83) about the same date (British Library, Royal ms 14 e iv, fo. 210), carry quivers that are once again of a form similar to ours but decorated in relief, not with masks, but with the fire steels of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece.

Their decoration appears, like that of our example, to have been applied.

From the evidence of the images just cited, the

quiver seems generally to have been suspended from a belt at the right hip of its wearer. In those cases where the left hip was occupied by a sword, this position would of course have been the natural one for any other accessory. As can be seen in our example, the quiver of the crossbowman, in contrast to that of the longbowman, flared more or less markedly to its lower end. This was to allow for the fact that the crossbowman’s bolts, unlike the arrows of the archer, were carried with the points uppermost and therefore required greater space at the lower end of the quiver to safely accommodate their fragile flights. These might variously have been made of wood, leather, parchment, bone or even brass. The tips of bolts used in hunting could likewise have varied in their design. In addition to the classic pyramidal or leaf-shaped heads commonly employed by the soldier, the sportsman had available to him broad heads, forked heads, chisel heads and domeended or flat-ended heads, each designed to deal with a different kind of game.

Height (including flaps) 15¾ in Width 7⅜ in Provenance Viscount Cowdray Collection

22

5

A Scottish Highland Claymore, circa 1574 Only those . . . who seek to-day to collect arms of Scottish origin can appreciate the extreme rarity of the true Claidheamh-mor . . .

Sir Guy Francis Laking

Our sword is a particularly fine example of a 16th-century Scottish claymore – the twohanded sword of the Scottish Highlands and Isles. ‘Claymore’ is the Anglicised version of the Gaelic term Claidheamh-mor, meaning ‘great sword’, and it has often been inappropriately used to refer to Scottish basket-hilted swords carried

by Highland regiments. The origin of the true Highland claymore emanates from a much earlier period of Scottish history that is less understood but intriguing. The elegant, well-proportioned and sleek profile of a genuine claymore is instantly recognisable. The distinctive crossguard, with its high collar and langets beneath, has an ancestry which can be traced back to the single-handed swords of the late Viking era in Scotland and the Western Isles. Only forty or so examples of genuine claymores are known to exist today, and most are in public and institutional collections. As a group, the surviving swords are also in varying states of restoration, repair and condition. Our sword is not only a rare survivor but is a fine example of the type. It lacks its grip but it has never been dismantled and retains its classic proportions.

Four outstanding examples, including our sword, are illustrated among others by Laking in A Record of European Armour and Arms. The first is a claymore once owned by Noel Paton, now in the National Museums of Scotland (no. a .1905.634); the second is the ‘Breadalbane’ clay­more, from the Rutherford Stuyvesant Collection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (no. 54.46.10) and the third is the one housed in the British Museum (no. OA.3189 PRN: 7064). Our sword 24

is the fourth in Laking’s notable sequence of outstanding examples, illustrated and described as a ‘claidheamh-mor . . . in a private collection in Perth’.

The earliest representation of a claymore in its fully developed form appears on a grave slab in Kirkapoll churchyard on the island of Tiree and is dated 1495. The latest is the depiction of a man wearing armour and holding a claymore, point down, sculpted into the left side pillar of the Upper Hall fireplace of Huntly Castle, some time around 1600. Between these extremes other dated representations are known, notably at Oransay Priory and at Rodel Church on Harris, in the Hebrides, where MacDuffie chiefs of Colonsay and MacLeods of Dunvegan on Skye are interred.

They are all of hand-and-a-half size, slightly smaller and therefore more manoeuvrable than larger Continental two-handers. Interestingly, clay­mores are generally shown in scabbards but none survive today; most of these depictions lie in the Western Highlands and Isles.

By the end of the 15th century the claymore had reached the peak of its development, suited for the tactics, technology and practicalities attached to warfare in the Highlands, Western Isles and surrounds. This perfection of the sword design created a consistency of form over a long period of time, lasting for more than a century.

The clan warriors equipped with these swords generally moved over long distances by foot, over rocky terrain, or by galley across water, travelling light and in an unencumbered self-sufficient manner, sustained by what they could carry and take from the land.

The 16th century, the period with which the claymore is associated, was one of the bloodiest in Highland and Scottish history. The period is not well recorded in the Highlands; the Highlanders and Islanders spoke Gaelic and lived in a bardic clan culture with little need or inclination to keep written records.

This contrasts quite markedly with our understanding of the later Jacobite Rebellions of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In the 14th and 15th centuries the Lordship of the Isles, a semiindependent regional kingdom, governed the Western Highlands and Isles. This was a period of relative peace, with the Western clans held in check by an alliance which governed from a parliament at Finlaggan on the Isle of Islay. The Lord of the Isles was a vassal of the Scottish crown; due to a mix of internal struggles within the pre-eminent MacDonald families, duplicity and treasonable dealings with the English against the Scottish crown, King James IV forfeited and dissolved the Lordship in 1493 when the estates and titles of John MacDonald II passed to the crown.

This did not lead to any increased control over this remote region, as a weak central government and the absence of the regional cohesion once provided by the Lordship unleashed the leading clans and their followers into a century of bitter, long-lasting and

26

bloody feuds where the strongest Western clans, including the MacLeans, MacDonalds, MacLeods and MacNeills, devastated each others’ lands and populations often with genocidal intent.

This was their heyday known in Gaelic as linn nan creach – ‘the time of raids’. The chiefs held sway as local warlords over the lands they held, either with or without legal title, accountable only to themselves and influenced only by the most ominous local threats and opportunities. The central and northern Highlands, traditionally, geographically and politically closer to the Scottish crown, behaved in turn in a similar manner, exploiting local opportunities in the absence of strong central authority.

However, it was the Western clans that harboured the biggest suspicion and resentment from the Scottish kings. Under the reign of James VI of Scotland (1566–1625) the divergence between the Scottish crown and the Gaelic-speaking clans was growing. While previous kings had feared the uncontrollable nature of these remote clans, they did at least show some respect in acknowledging Gaelic customs and speaking the language. James VI would have none of it and looked to Europe for civilising and aspirational influences to guide his reign. Under his kingship the Gaelic language became known as ‘Erse’ or Irish, now seen as non-Scottish and alien.

James tolerated the clans in the eastern and southern Highlands which bordered the ‘civilised’ Lowlands but still looked down upon them as tribal and backward-looking. Those in the west and in the Isles, the area where the claymore is the most significant cultural icon of the 16th century, he regarded contemptuously as ‘void of the knawledge and feir of God’ who were prone to ‘all kynd of barbarous and bestile cruelteis’.

The Western clans in the 16th century were also a significant irritant to the Scottish kings, and in particular to James VI, because of their proximity to, and their relations with, Ireland.

Ireland was not fully under English control in the 16th century and Scottish, English and resident Irish clans, nobles and magnates were frequently warring with each other for control of lands and resources. Claims for territory were fought out under pretexts of tenuous loyalties to the aims of either the English or Scottish crowns, who, themselves, would change policy towards Ireland depending upon the status of relations between the two countries at any one time. In the 16th century Ireland was a melting pot of almost permanent hostility, bloodshed and shifting alliances.

In this environment the drain on manpower was enormous.

The Galloglas kindreds that had supplied Ireland’s hard men for centuries had by now forgotten their native Scottish roots and had developed traditional affiliations with various lords, often fighting on opposing sides and among each other. Against this backdrop a 27

new wave of Scottish mercenaries entered the fray in the 16th century. Known as ‘Redshanks’, these swelling ranks consisted of Scottish Highlanders earning money through one of the few routes open to them, by fighting and by bringing home booty.

While genuine claymores are rare today, Scottish two-handed swords would have been a common enough sight in the 16th century. A letter from Lachlan MacLean of Duart, dated 18 March 1595/6, addressed to the English agent Robert Bowes, specifies what Lachlan claims he could provide for English service in Ireland: 1,500 bowmen and 500 ‘ fyremen’. In this number we will not want our two-handed swords and armour of mail to be used if battle be offered to us; at which time we will change some of our bowmen to use their two-handed swords the time of battle.

Examples of this sort of blatant disloyalty to the Scottish crown, pernicious self-interest and haughtiness by the Western chiefs, combined with his helplessness in controlling this behaviour, must have infuriated King James.

That the Scots used their two-handed swords in quantity is demonstrated in the record of the defeat of the English forces under the Earl of Chichester at Carrickfergus in Ireland in 1597, 28

which shows that the Scots were carrying ‘sloughe swords’. ‘Slaughter’, ‘slaugh’, ‘slath’ and ‘sloughe’ were contemporary English terms used for the two-handed sword – presumably mainly those carried by Scots mercenaries fighting on both sides because these swords were not a significant feature of the 16th-century English armoury.

It is also clear that the Highlanders attached a symbolic meaning to the two-handed sword other than its funerary association. An incident in 1595 occurred when a MacDonald leader, while travelling with his men to fight in Ireland, was involved in a dispute in Argyle. As a solution he offered to resolve the matter by fighting a duel with ‘twa handit swordis’. Clearly, a clan leader (and indeed his opponent), by volunteering to fight a duel, presumably with claymores, must have been trained, probably from a very young age, in its use as a ‘one-on-one’ weapon.

The claymore came to the end of its effective working life at the beginning of the 17th century.

Queen Elizabeth I of England died childless and in 1603 James VI of Scotland was invited to sit on the throne of England as James I of England and VI of Scotland. Within a few years a relative calm descended on Ireland. The vying factions were no longer able to trade shallow and

potentially lucrative allegiances to conflicting national interests now that one king sat on the thrones of England and Scotland.

It was apparent to King James that he now had the opportunity to bring these troublesome clans to heel. The Statutes of Iona enacted in 1609 are generally seen today as a reform process begun

by King James to extirpate Gaelic culture in the Highlands and the traditional way of life of the clan chiefs. An earlier period of consultation in 1608 had made the King’s position clear with regard to the clans and weapons ‘that they shall forbear wearing any kind of armour (especially guns, bows, and two-handed swords) except only onehanded swords and targes’.

Thus the manufacture and use of the claymore gradually declined after 1609, until only a few swords remained with noble families for cere­ monial use. The hilts of many would probably have been re-forged into basket hilts and the blades ground down to suit.

Provenance Private collection, Scotland W. Keith Neal Collection Earlshall Collection Private collection, Germany

Overall length 49¾ in Blade length 37¼ in

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6

A German Sabre, Saxon, circa 1590 The successful invasion of much of central Europe by the Ottoman Turkish troops of Suleiman the Magnificent in the early 16th century, and in particular their arrival in force at the gates of Vienna in 1529, prompted in those tasked with halting their advance not only alarm and consternation but also a very real measure of admiration. There was no denying the visual splendour of the Turks, nor the courage with which they fought. More impressive than that, however, was the success of their light cavalry against European forces still dependent to a large extent on a core body of heavily armoured lancers.

The lessons learnt from those encounters did not go unheeded. By the mid-16th century, light cavalry had come to make up a significant component of most European armies and even, on occasion, took to arming themselves in the Turkish fashion. In the German lands the Zischägge, a straight copy of the open-faced Turkish çiçak, gradually become their headpiece of choice. Similarly, the curved, single-edged sabre, inspired by the arms of their Turkish adversaries, would in time become the universal sidearm of the cavalryman. At the time that our impressive sword was produced, however, the sabre was still something of a novelty: one that a nobleman might well wear simply for ceremonial purposes as an exotic accessory.

The word ‘sabre’ appears to have had its origins in the Hungarian–Slavic region of Eastern Europe where the use of the curved, singleedged sword, introduced there by nomadic invaders from Central Asia and variously known as the szablya, sablya or szabla, went back to the 9th century. The form of sabre carried by the Ottoman Turkish invaders of central Europe in the 16th century shared the Central Asian ancestry of the latter, but was called the kilij: a name loosely translating as ‘instrument of 32

slaughter’. A western European representation of a sabre of kilij-like form appears as early as 1528–32 in a design prepared by the Swiss artist Hans Holbein the Younger for the decoration of the house of a sword cutler.

Although the inspiration for the form of the Western European sabre may have come from the East, that for its decoration would generally have come from closer to home. The delightfully fretted and engraved panels adorning the hilt of our example clearly tell a story. Social tales with a moral message, typically delivered as short amusing narratives and frequently touching upon erotic subjects involving, as in this instance, marriage, are known in German medieval literature as Maeren. One of the most celebrated authors of such tales was the German Franciscan friar and humorist Johannes Pauli (about 1445– 1535) whose most successful work, Schimpf und Ernst, appeared in printed form in 1522, 1545, 1550 and many times thereafter.

The story told by the decorative panels of our sword begins with a strutting young soldier embarking on his premeditated route to domestic bliss. He entreats the obviously wealthy Bürger for the hand of his daughter, and with it the dowry which will clearly accompany her. The beautiful daughter, piously dressed as a novitiate in the course of receiving a convent education, is instructed by a priest or monk. In the next panel a lapse of time is indicated by the growth of the gallant’s moustache. He woos the maiden and she, in return, indicates her acceptance of him by presenting him with a myrtle flower, symbolising love and marriage. In the final panel we see the couple in blissful maturity. The soldier, now sporting a fully developed moustache, appears to have settled into the comfort of the prestigious but safe appointment of officer of the city watch, thanks to the social standing of his wife’s family.

She demonstrates her fidelity by accompanying her husband on his rounds, holding the lantern and, perhaps somewhat more tellingly, the staff of his halberd.

The scene in which the young maiden presents her suitor with a myrtle flower appears also in engravings reproduced in the Ansicht von Ham­ burg by Daniel Frese, 1587, the Kostümwerk by Bertelli, 1594, and the Ansicht von Hamburg by Pieter van der Doort, 1595. The costume worn by the figures decorating the grip of our sabre closely resembles in style that depicted in these engravings and is typical of the fashions favoured in Germany in the latter part of the 16th century.

Providing further evidence of the date of our sabre is the construction of its hilt. The three diagonal bars that make up its inner guards are of a form unrecorded before 1562 when they appear in the portrait of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire. They appear again soon afterwards on a dated sword of 1567 in the Real Armerià, Madrid (no. g.54), and another of 1570 in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris (no. j.126), but are uncommon before the following decade.

While the lion’s head pommel and matching quillon ends of our sabre might be seen as inviting comparison with the corresponding elements of the so-called Schweizersäbel or Swiss sabre of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, differences both in its decoration and in the configuration of its guards suggest that our somewhat finer sabre may have emanated from a different and rather more distinguished school.

The double-headed eagle that forms the central motif of the etched decoration of its blade must inevitably raise the possibility that the sword as a whole had its origins in Germany. Significantly, perhaps, the overall design of its hilt accords closely with that identified by the late A. V. B. Norman as his type 45 and dated by him to the period 1590–1620. Chief among representatives of this type of hilt are a numbered series emanating from the Saxon Electoral collections at Dresden, examples of which are now, or were at one time, to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (no. m.2790–1931), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (von Kienbusch no. 369), and the former collections of Schloss Wartburg, Thuringia (no. 873). Each bears at the ends of its arms the initials of the distinguished Dresden sword cutler Anton Schuch or Schuech. Although the earliest records of him, dating from the period 1582–7, come from the archives at Munich, he must very soon afterwards have moved to Dresden where mention of him is made as early as 1590 and 1591.

A particularly elaborate version of the kind of hilt under discussion is the splendid enamelled silver example in the Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden (no. vi.433).

The resemblance of the hilt of our sabre to these and other related swords from Dresden is surely more than mere coincidence and raises the very real probability that it too is a product of the same exalted school of sword cutlers.

Overall length 49 in Blade length 40⅞ in Provenance Private collection, Germany

35

7

A North Italian Close Helmet for the Foot Tourney, Milan, circa 1580–90 The costly state-sponsored tournaments of the late 16th century were among the grandest spectacles of their age: ones in which the contestants, typically drawn from the highest levels of society, would have vied with one another to demonstrate not only their superior skill in the use of arms but also, through the splendour of those arms, something of their wealth and social standing.

Our superbly preserved close helmet affords a rare glimpse of the brilliant colour that would have been such a striking feature of those lavish courtly entertainments. The armours used in them would wherever possible have been commissioned from the finest craftsmen of the day and embellished, in the case of those intended for use by the highest-ranking of its participants, with a rich ornament that immediately proclaimed their elevated status.

Our helmet, clearly made for a man of means, is of a type intended for wear in the foot tourney. As is typical of Italian-made examples of its period, its lower edge is formed with an internally hollowed rim enabling it to lock over and rotate on the outward-turned upper edge of the gorget. This feature not only served to close the vulnerable gap that might otherwise have existed at the wearer’s throat but also provided a certain amount of support to his neck in the event of his head being driven backwards by the force of an opponent’s blow. It is possible that the unusual semicircular bosses situated over each of his ears would originally have accommodated some form of internal strapping system designed to provide additional support to his head.

Although the helmet’s strongly stepped visionslit would have caused some reduction to the lower part of the wearer’s field of vision, it also shielded his eyes more fully from the splinters

38

of an opponent’s broken pike. To improve safety further, ventilation of the helmet was confined to just a few small holes pieced in the right of its upper bevor.

The foot tourney was, as its name implies, a sport fought by two teams of dismounted contestants, each armed with coronel-tipped pikes which they endeavoured to splinter against one another before continuing to fight with rebated, or blunted, swords. The fight took place over a dividing barrier which had been introduced in the early part of the 16th century as a concession to safety, partly to allow an injured contestant to pull back out of range of his opponent, and partly to prevent such contests from degenerating, as they had sometimes done previously, into wrestling matches. With the introduction of the barrier, blows beneath the level of the waist became impossible, and the tendency, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, was for the foot tourney to be fought without leg harness.

In late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy even the skirt and tassets of the armour were usually dispensed with.

The resultant half-armour may have formed part of a garniture of matching pieces. These could be assembled in various ways to meet the specific requirements of each form of contest normally practised in the lists at that time, namely: the tilt, the tourney and the foot tourney. Helmets of a similar form to ours can be seen making up parts of the garnitures of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (nos 1205 and 3507), made for him about 1585/6 by Pompeo della Chiesa of Milan, and of Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, now divided between the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum,

Munich (nos w.1001–2), the Wallace Collection, London (no. a .60), and the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (no. zo.3951), and made for him by the so-called Maestro dal Castello of Milan in or shortly after about 1587; see the next entry, no. 8.

In the period that our helmet was made, armours for the foot tourney were increasingly being supplied by the armourer not merely as parts of all-purpose garnitures but as discrete

40

and independent entities. In earlier times the sport of the tournament was viewed as a means of preparing its participants for warfare, but by the late 16th century, with the decline in the role of the heavy cavalryman in the battlefields, the tilt and the tourney increasingly became an irrelevance. Although these mounted events lingered on into the early 17th century, there was, in the intervening years, an increasing tendency

for the foot tourney to become the sole event of the tournament. Our helmet is thus to be seen not only as a magnificently preserved example of its type, but one that was very much characteristic of its time.

Provenance Viscount Cowdray Collection

Height 10 in Width 7½ in Weight 4 lb

41

8

An Italian Armour for the Foot Tourney by the ‘Master of the Castle’, Milan, circa 1590–1600 The greatest producers of armour in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance were arguably those of the Lombardic city of Milan.

Purportedly it was their boast that they could if necessary equip an army overnight. Their efficient manufacturing methods coupled with a well-organised network of international distributors earned them a dominant position within the European market. It was noted by Galvano Fiamma (1298–1344) in his Chronicon Extravigans that in early 14th-century Milan, The makers of hauberks alone are a hundred, not to mention innumerable workmen under them who make links for mail with marvellous skill.

With the widespread adoption of plate armour in the 15th century, such production methods were taken by the armourers of Milan to an even higher level, with different makers often being required, for the sake of efficiency, to specialise in the manufacture of just one particular part of an armour. When in the following century the demand grew among the wealthier classes for decorated armours, the armourers of Milan were able to supply them at competitive prices. By the end of the 16th century, Milanese etched armour had established itself as the height of fashion in much of Europe.

In a city blessed with so many skilled armourers, it was inevitable that from time to time a few of their number would rise by virtue of their exceptional talent to international prominence.

The maker of our magnificent armour was certainly amongst the most gifted. Today known only as the 'Maestro dal Castello', or ‘Master of the Castle’, from the presence of the etched mark of a castle applied by him as a signature to the centre of the neck-opening of breastplates of his armours, he was responsible for the creation of

44

some of the finest Italian armours of the period.

Our armour was at one time in the collection of the Earls of Harrington, at Elvaston Castle, Derbyshire, having been purchased by the fourth Earl, Charles Stanhope (1780–1851), from the London dealer Samuel Luke Pratt who had pur­ portedly acquired it from a Continental European collection shortly after the Napleonic Wars. At the time of its sale from the Harrington collection in 1964 it was fitted with a ‘Spanish’ morion etched to match it. In 1976, however, the then owner of the armour was able to reunite it with its original close helmet which had for many years been preserved separately in the Rothschild Collection at the Château de Ferrières-en-Brie, France.

The form of the close helmet, with its internally hollowed lower edge enabling it to lock over and rotate on the upper edge of the collar of the armour, and the wing-headed locking screw at the right of the chin enabling its upper bevor to be securely fastened to the underlying lower bevor, shows it to have been intended for use in the barriera, a form of foot tourney fought over a dividing barrier. The surviving elements of the armour appear, however, to have originally formed part of a garniture of matching pieces that could be variably interchanged with one another in order to meet the several differing needs of the battlefield and the lists. Thus the extant breastplate, having no holes for the attachment of a lance rest, could as readily have served as part of an infantry armour as one for the barrier, as indeed could its pendent tassets and accompanying large symmetrical pauldrons. Other pieces of the garniture would have allowed it to be adapted to mounted use.

In the Art Institute of Chicago (no. 1982.2493, ex-G. F. Harding Collection) is a visor and bevor

of a close helmet for use in the jousts or tilt that bears exactly the same decoration as our armour and almost certainly derives from the same garniture. This is true also of a manifer or elbowlength gauntlet for the left hand in the Wallace Collection, London (no. a .58), which is once again intended for use in the jousts or tilt. Our armour, it would appear, must have originally formed part of an extensive and rather costly garniture.

The brilliant etched, gilt and blackened interlace design of the decoration is one that clearly enjoyed considerable popularity in the late 16th century. Although secondary bands of trophies were in many cases inserted between the main bands of interlace, our more restrained version of the design enjoyed equal popularity and can be found, for example, on a half-armour for foot tourney use in the Cleveland Museum of Art (offered by us in our catalogue of 1996, no. 2), on a breastplate for foot tourney or infantry use in the Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Brescia (no. 969), and on a breastplate for heavy field use formerly in the collections at Warwick Castle.

More than one Milanese armourer chose to decorate his products with versions of this same attractive and therefore popular design. The name usually associated with this style of decoration is that of Pompeo della Chiesa (recorded 1571–93) who had his workshop in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and could count the king of Spain among his many noble patrons. His etched signature, in the form pompeo or pompe or pomp, is most often found on armours decorated with the more elaborate version of the pattern of ornament under discussion, the one in which bands of trophies alternate with interlace, but it also occurs on the version decorated only with interlace. An armour bearing Pompeo’s signature at Wilton House, Wiltshire, made for Henry Herbert, Second Earl of Pembroke (about 1538–1570–1600/1), lacks its helmet and gauntlets but is otherwise very similar in both form and decoration to our armour.

Pompeo, however, although the only Milanese maker of his period to whom surviving works 47

can now safely be attributed, was certainly not the only one in his city making fine armours of the style under discussion. A fine half-armour for infantry use, formerly in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, and now in the Art Institute of Chicago (no. 1982.2194, ex-G. F. Harding Collection), is etched at the centre of the neck of its breastplate with the signature of ifp.

Of greater importance, however, was the maker who signed himself on our armour and others like it, with the etched mark of a castle, perhaps an indication that he, like his contemporary, Pompeo della Chiesa, was privileged to work in the Castello Sforzesco, the residence of the Dukes of Milan. His signature, being etched rather than stamped, inevitably varies quite considerably in its details, sometimes consisting of a castle with three towers, and at other times only two. In addition, the mark is sometimes accompanied by a crossed orb between wings, perhaps repre­ senting the Holy Spirit. It is unlikely that these variant marks relate to different makers or

48

workshops. For two high-quality workshops active at the same time and in the same city to be allowed to use virtually identical marks is almost inconceivable.

The extant works of the ‘Master of the Castle’ include several decorated in the same manner as our armour: among them a full, or cap-à-pie armour in the Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Brescia (no. 999), and a half-armour for infantry use in a private collection in Spain. The magnificent garniture made by the master for Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg (1559–1616/17), and now divided between the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (nos w.1001-2), the Wallace Collection, London (no. a.60), and the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. no. zo.3951), bears the more elaborate version of the interlace design, alternating with bands of trophies. The garniture is likely to have been ordered by the Prince soon after he received his title in 1587. Showing a somewhat different scheme of decoration is a group of eleven slightly

later armours etched overall with the so-called ‘Savoyard Knot’ design: among them one in the Real Armeria, Turin (no. e.18), made for Vittorio Amedeo I, Duke of Savoy in 1602–3, two in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris (no. g.190, ex-G. Pauilhac Collection), one in the Real Armerià, Madrid, no. a .369) and another in the Wallace Collection, London (no. a .63). Still further patterns of decoration are to be found on a detached breastplate for heavy field use in the same collection (no. a .56), an armour for the foot tourney in Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Brescia (no.

995), and a detached breastplate for foot tourney or infantry use also in that collection (no. 907).

This lengthy list of works, although far from exhaustive, provides ample evidence of the large and varied output of high-class armours that must have issued over the years from the workshop of the late 16th and early 17th century ‘Master of the Castle’. Our armour is as much to

be welcomed for the contribution that it makes to the study of this highly important Milanese armourer’s output as it is to be admired for its striking beauty.

Height (including plinth) 78 in Weight 41 lb Provenance The Earls of Harrington, Elvaston Castle, Derbyshire, England, sold Sotheby’s 4 May, 1964, lot 174 (armour) Rothschild Collection, Château de Ferrières-enBrie, France, sold Sotheby’s 12 October 1976, lot 300 (helmet) Private collection, UK Private collection, Germany

51

9

A Pair of German Wheellock Holster Pistols Bearing the Arms of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Administrator of the Saxon Electoral Regency, Maker’s Mark of Christoph Dressler, Dresden, Dated 1596 Friedrich Wilhelm I, for whom these important pistols were made, was the second Duke of Saxe-Weimar, the duchy having been created in 1572 upon the enforced division of the Saxon Ernestine duchies by the Emperor Maximilian II, known as the Division of Erfurt. Friedrich Wilhelm I succeeded to the title in the following year. A striking full-length portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm in his decorated armour and with his baton of office was painted by Zacharias Wehme in 1597. The portrait additionally bears a painted inscription giving his full titles, including that of Duke of Saxe-Weimar, together with his coat of arms quartered as they appear on the present pistols (Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden, no. h.205).

In September 1591 the Saxon Elector Christian I died suddenly and was succeeded by his son as Christian II, then a child and unable to reign.

A regency was jointly assigned to Friedrich Wilhelm, as Administrator of the Electorate, and to the Duchess Sophie (1568–1622), widow

54

of Christian I and mother of Christian II; the regency was dissolved when Christian II came of age and succeeded to the title of Fürst, in 1601.

The entire period of the Saxon regency was characterised by an Orthodox Lutheran purge of Calvinism within the ranks of Saxon notables and theologians, which commenced immediately upon the death of Christian I, driven by Sophie and enacted by Duke Friedrich Wilhelm, a zealous Lutheran. The primary victim of the religious proscriptions was Dr Nikolaus Krell, a member of the Electoral Privy Council who had been appointed Chancellor by the sympathetic Christian I in 1589. Krell had sought to gradually instate his own religious and political convictions in place of the reigning Lutheran Orthodoxy in Saxony. In January 1591 Krell had invoked the ire of the Princess Sophie by his persuasion of the Elector to forego the Lutheran rite of exorcism within the baptism of their daughter Dorothea.

On the day before the Elector’s funeral seven months later, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm arrested

Krell and imprisoned him in Königstein Castle, where he remained until his public execution in Dresden in October 1601.

The specifically drawn and detailed trophies of armour, instru­ ments and weapons engraved on the locks and wheel covers of the present pistols are taken from the original designs of Hans Vredeman de Vries; the work entitled Panoplia sev armamentarium ac ornamenta cum atrium ac opificiorum tum etiam Exuuiarum Martialium, qua Spolia quoque alijs appelari con sueuere, and published

by Gerard de Jode, Antwerp, in 1572. The armour alla antica engraved on the locks is a relatively unusual subject and it appears twice, together with musical instruments, within the design on the title page of the published sheets; the lances and wheellock pistols are included on subsequent sheets. Examples of the 1572 edition are preserved in a number of institutional collections, including the Rijksmuseum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The engraved decoration on the locks of our pistols is related to the engraving on the locks of an important pair of Saxon wheellock holster pistols retained within the former Electoral Collection in Dresden (Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden hmd.12). The engraving is additionally related to that on the lock of a Dresden wheellock sporting gun in the von Kienbusch Collection, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (von Kienbusch catalogue no. 634). The barrels of each of these comparable examples are also struck with the maker’s marks of Christoph Dressler, each is dated 1589, and the wheel covers on the locks are engraved with the arms of Christian I, Elector of Saxony, together with those of his wife, Princess Sophia, daughter of the Elector of Brandenburg.

The engraved horn inlay on the stocks of the present pair of pistols also compares very closely with the inlay on the stocks of the aforementioned pistols in Dresden, the personal pistols of the Elector. On the basis of the largely shared characteristics of the respective inlaid schemes, prominent among which is their propensity to closely similar bird subjects, it would seem very likely that the stocks of both pairs of pistols originated from the same Dresden workshop, perhaps that of Hans Fleischer.

Christoph Dressler, or Tressler, was a maker of gun barrels and mechanical instruments in Dresden who followed his father Lorenz Dressler in this trade. From the evidence of surviving firearms he also made gun locks, and is recorded working in the years 1571–1624. He was succeeded in the business by his son, also Christoph. His brother Baltasar, who was also a gunmaker worked with Christoph in 1598 on a five-barrelled ‘carriage gun’, a gun mounted on a wheeled carriage, for Duke Johann Friedrich of Pomerania. In 1587 Dressler made a hunting rifle for Duke 57

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Wilhelm V of Brunswick, and in subsequent years he experimented further with unusual and multi-shot systems; the Dresden archives record ‘Two treble [barrelled] carriage guns’ made by him; and in 1603 the archives record Dressler having forged a barrel to fire star-shaped bullets.

Christoph Dressler was a highly regarded figure, as evidenced by his appointments as Gunmaker to the court of Christian II and Administrator of the Royal Gun Apartment. He was also a prolific maker; further examples of his work include a magnificent two-shot wheellock rifle with superimposed-load barrel made in 1604 and stocked by Hans Fleischer, which is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (no. l.347).

A wheellock rifle in the Wallace Collection (no. a.1088), which is struck with Dressler’s marks and dated 1611, is the more notable within the context of this brief appreciation in that in this case, the larger surface area of the stock is

inlaid with a superb replication of the trophy designs of Hans Vredeman de Vries. Within the former Saxon Electoral armouries, now the Rüstkammer, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, there are seven pairs of wheellock pistols and two single over-and-under wheellock pistols all bearing Dressler’s marks. He also made a number of wheellock pistols, or puffers, for the Saxon Electoral guard.

Overall length 25⅜ in Barrel length 16⅛ in Provenance: The armoury at Schloss Hartenfels, Torgau, princely residence of the Electors of Saxony and governing seat of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar (b. 1562, r. 1573–1602), Administrator des Sächsischen Kurstaates 1591–1601 Private collection, Germany 59

10

A German Swept-hilt Rapier, circa 1620 The near pristine silver-encrusted decoration of this handsomely proportioned rapier catches the eye with as much force today as it would surely have done at the time it was worn. There is no doubt that its rich appearance would have been as important to its original owner as were its qualities as a weapon. In an age devoid of civil policing, the wary citizen would have felt obliged to go about armed for his own protection. For much of the 16th and 17th centuries the rapier became the ubiquitous costume-accessory of the gentleman. In fulfilling that role it was perhaps inevitable that it should acquire the status of a piece of male jewellery, that through the richness of its ornament attested the wealth and social standing of its owner. Silver-encrusted ornament of the kind found on our sword was among the richest that could be applied to any weapon. The precious metal was first inlaid into incisions cut into the base metal and then its finer details chased in relief – the effect was, as can be seen here, stunning!

Giles Dawes, in his English–French dictionary of 1532–3 translated the French word rapiere as ‘the Spannyshe sworde’. There seems little doubt that it was in 15th-century Spain that the rapier had its origins. Spanish documents of 1468 and 1503 refer to it as the espada ropera or ‘robe sword’, suggesting that it was from the outset seen as a weapon intended for wear with civilian costume.

By 1475 the Spanish term had entered the French language as espee rapiere which was in due course abbreviated to rapiere. The earliest reference to the weapon in the English language occurs in an account of 1505 recording the ‘binding of . . .ane rappyer . . . with cordis of silk’ for James IV of Scotland.

By the mid-16th century, the term ‘rapier’ had come to refer to a sword that was equipped with a long, slender blade intended primarily 60

for thrusting, and a more or less elaborately constructed hilt designed to provide protection to the unarmoured hand of the civilian. The hilt of our rapier is of the classic ‘swept’ form, which tended to increase in complexity through the years, with its long straight quillons, three inclined side rings issuing from the base of its arms, and its outer loop guard connecting the knuckleguard to the uppermost of those rings.

Our example can be placed securely within Norman’s type 61 which had a relatively brief life, making it easy to date.

The earliest recorded illustration of this type occurs in a portrait of about 1610 by Rubens, in the collection of HM The Queen, at Windsor Castle (no. 282), probably representing the Archduke Albrecht, while the latest, also by Rubens, occurs in his self-portrait of about 1638–40 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (no. gg.527).

Other portrait evidence for the type suggests that it enjoyed its greatest popularity in the period 1615–30. In the Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Vienna (no. a.1027) is a silver-encrusted example, mounted on a blade bearing the date 1613, while another in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris (no. j.381), made for Louis XIII and decorated with motherof-pearl cameos, is mounted on a blade bearing the date 1614. Representing the later part of the type’s life-span is a silver-encrusted example in the Finnish National Museum, Helsinki (no. 5110.1), which was formerly suspended over the tomb of Karl Persson Svinhuvud and must therefore date from no later than his death in 1634.

Silver-encrustation was one of the most popular forms of decoration on rapiers of this type and not infrequently included winged cherubs’ heads, as shown for instance by a rapier in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds (no. ix .877). The baluster mouldings that decorate the guards of our rapier are also a common feature

of the type, being seen for example on two rapiers in the Wallace Collection, London (nos a.581 and 585). Swords with this kind of decoration were popular throughout much of northern Europe but seem chiefly to have been made in Germany.

The blade of our rapier bears the signature of Andreis Munsten, one of a family of Solingen sword cutlers, sometimes alluded to in the registers of the city as ‘Mungsten’ or ‘Müngsten’. His name, along with that of his presumed relative, Peter Munsten, occurs on a relatively large number of surviving Solingen blades of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Interestingly, it appears as early as 1584 on the dated blade of a rapier made for King Frederik II of Denmark, and now in the royal collections at Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. The occurrence however of the same signature on the blades mounted as parts of rapiers that, like ours, date from the early 17th century, suggest either that Andreis enjoyed an unusually long working life or else that a later member of his family or an unscrupulous copyist signed with the same name. Of particular significance in this context is the fact that he himself spent some time working in the Spanish arms manufacturing centres of Toledo and Calatayud attempting to learn more about foreign production methods.

It may well be that it was this period of training that earned him the right to apply to his blades the title Espadero del Rei (Swordmaker to the King) inscribed along the edges of the ricasso of our weapon.

It seems in any event to have resulted in his mark of a crowned a being formally recorded among those of the bladesmiths of Toledo.

The crowned v occurring on the ricasso of our rapier is perhaps to be seen as a misrendering of that mark. Andreas Munsten, with his Toledo training, had evidently enjoyed a particularly high reputation in his field, and his signature would have been seen as one that was well worth copying. As distinguished as they may have been in their own right, the sword cutlers of the North Rhine–Westphalian city of Solingen had no qualms about applying to their works the signatures and marks of other more famous makers – both past and present – if that was what the retailers, namely the hilt makers that they traded to, required of them. If a good ‘designer label’ was what the latter felt would best sell their products, then that was what they would be supplied with.

Overall length 47½ in Blade length 41¼ in Provenance Duke Ernst of Sachsen-Altenburg Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, July 3rd, 1973, lot 258 Private collection, Germany 62

11

A French Casket, Laque incrusté, after the Japanese Raden and Nashiji Traditions, circa 1625 Caskets and the stocks of wheellock firearms lacquered in this highly distinctive manner are extremely rare, although the handful of recorded examples are linked by a technique and style which are sufficiently close as to reasonably attribute all to a single workshop, most probably in one of the cities of north-eastern France, perhaps Strasbourg. To date, the only means of referencing this group of lacquered works is to associate them with the French gunmaker whose mark is struck on the lockplate of two pistols and a carbine with stocks so decorated. The gunmaker’s mark is a shield filled with the letters ip and a mullet beneath.

The recorded surviving works belonging to this group are: 1. A long wheellock pistol and matching powder flask, about 1620, tentatively attributed to Flanders and preserved in the former Saxon Electoral Collection, now the Rüstkammer, Staat­liche Kunstsammlung Dresden (no. 1428).

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2. A French wheellock carbine, about 1590, preserved in the former Imperial Collection in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (no. a .1097).

3. A French long wheellock pistol, early 17th century, Christie’s, London, 26 October 1994, lot 239 (the catalogue text incorrectly gives the pistol and flask in Dresden as a pair of pistols).

4. A French gunstocker’s casket, early 17th century, Christie’s, London, 29 October 1986, lot 96; previously sold by Christie’s, Hamilton Palace, 18 July 1882, lot 1815.

This highly distinctive lacquer work is a European version of the Japanese lacquer technique known as raden, in which traditional urushi lacquer is strikingly enriched by the addition of fragments of abalone shell-linings.

A variation of this is the nashiji technique, by which gold and silver flakes (nashiji-ko) are sprinkled onto the chosen surface prior to the

application of the lacquer; the resulting surface when lacquered is then burnished with charcoal to reveal the gold and silver shimmering through.

The European version of these methods became known in the 18th century as aventurine lacquer.

Unlike Japanese lacquer, 16th- and 17th-century Western lacquer was formed from a resin base, similar to shellac.

Following its introduction via Italy and Spain, the taste for exotic Eastern decorative finishes applied to furniture and to a range of luxury wares had by the late 16th century descended from the royal and noble courts of Europe to a broad northern European market. With demand having outpaced supply, there was a natural movement towards the replication of these finishes by Western artisans. The closure of Japan to Westerners, under the sakoku (seclusion policy) commencing in 1633, precluded further exports other than through a small Dutch post, off-shore, within the bay of Nagasaki. Ironically the effective ending of Japanese trade ensured the further development of Western decorative lacquer techniques and the growth of this industry concentrated both in the Low Countries and in 66

the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine.

In the early 17th century guilds of master lacquer workers were established in Antwerp and Amsterdam, working with distinctly European techniques and in the styles of ornament exemplified by the present casket. The Flemish town of Spa, close to Liège, came under the aegis of the Antwerp guild and was particularly noted as a centre of production. Together with the further evidence of the stocks of the luxury firearms noted above, it appears most likely that lacquer-working was also by this period concentrated in the French region of Alsace.

Both Alsace and Lorraine were certainly wellestablished centres of lacquer-working by the outset of the 18th century, and it follows that the then mature industry should have been rooted early within the previous century.

The lacquered surfaces of our casket are inlaid with a series of finely engraved brass plaques. They comprise the female personifications of Fortitude and Charity at either end, the Roman goddess Abundantia, or possibly Virtue in the person of Minerva, at the rear, and the lid is inlaid with four of the mythical beasts associated with the

Labours of Hercules, respectively, the Ceryneian Hind, the Cretan Bull, one of the four Mares of Diomedes and one of the Cattle of Geryon.

The key escutcheon is formed as an elaborately pierced and engraved panel in the manner of Johann Theodore de Bry, involving a pair of putti supporters seated within a symmetrical design of scrollwork, and further involving monsters’ heads, entwined serpents, squirrels, fruit and ornamental foliage. The lacquered surfaces are all within a brass flush-fitting framework, the greater part of which is engraved with bands of rinceaux scrollwork formed as continuous meandering tendrils of leafy honeysuckle foliage interspersed with rosettes, probably after the original blackwork designs of Michel le Blon. The engraving is correspondingly heightened with black pigment, and the basal borders decorated with imbricated bands engraved bright.

The respective engravers whose published designs gave inspiration to the plaques decorating our casket, were strongly influenced by the engraved Mannerist ornaments for metalworkers originally conceived by Etienne Delaune (b. about 1519, d. 1583), the French virtuoso goldsmith, 68

designer and engraver. Delaune worked in Strasbourg, capital of the Alsace, the Imperial Free City, at a time that it was both notably Protestant and the centre of the 16th- and 17thcentury book trade in Europe. Consequently, it was for refuge and for the ready dissemination of his engraved designs that Delaune, a Protestant Huguenot, chose Strasbourg in which to work when he fled religious persecution in Paris in 1572. Delaune remained in Strasbourg until 1580, and in this period he worked with and tutored the Dutch engraver Theodore de Bry (1528–1598), himself a protestant refugee to the city.

De Bry produced a quantity of influential engraved ornaments for goldsmiths and metal­ workers, including those for sword hilts, watches, cartouches and knife handles both in Strasbourg and latterly in Frankfurt-am-Main. His son Johann Theodore (1561–1623) was born in the city of Liège and worked in collaboration with his father and his brother Johann Israel (1565–1609) in Frankfurt.

The de Brys are specifically known for their naturalistically drawn flowers, robust figural subjects and small animals which they

incorporated as ever-present features within at least two elaborately illuminated alphabets: the first published in Frankfurt in 1592, within the book entitled Emblemata Saecularia, with a subsequent edition published in 1627. Their second was published in 1596 under the title Neiw Kunstliches Alphabet. While much of the figural content within the imaginatively drawn letters of both titles is biblical, a significant portion is based on more whimsical Mannerist and neoclassical elements which, together with the inclusion of small creatures and grotesques, are closely reminiscent of the elaborate escutcheon on our present casket. The other engraved plaques on the casket may also have been inspired by earlier de Bry works but as a whole show the marked influence of Delaune.

The blackwork rinceaux engraving on the brass framework of the casket very closely resembles the border frieze of a lozenge and roundel blackwork design published in 1605 by the Amsterdam engraver Michel Le Blon (1587–1656). A pupil of Johann Theodore de Bry, he also published in about 1610–12 a series of six arabesque plates of ornaments for knife handles, and in 1626 a series

of designs of foliage, fruit, flowers and armorial devices. Le Blon was subsequently appointed art agent to Queen Christina of Sweden and is also said to have selected paintings for the collection of King Charles I of England.

Designs such as these were inevitably dis­ seminated among engravers and artisans involved in the full range of luxury metalworking in Northern France and the Low Countries within the first half of the 17th century. For example, the rinceaux border designs found on the present casket bear a very close resemblance to several of the designs for the decoration of gun locks included in the series of engravings published in Paris by Thomas Picquot in 1638, under the title Livre de diverses ordonnances de feuillages, moresques, etc.

Width 7⅛ in Depth 4⅛ in Height 4 in Provenance Private collection, France

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12

A German Flintlock Breechloading Break-action Sporting Gun for Ball or Shot (Kippbüchse)

by George Grebe, Kassel, circa 1690 George Grebe (Grebi) was registered as a Bürger of the city of Kassel in the Landgraviate of HesseKassel in 1695. He is also recorded in the archives of his German Baptist faith, sometimes known as the ‘Brethren’, as Gunmaker to the Court of Karl, Landgrave von Hesse-Kassel (r. 1670–1730).

By 1708 Grebe had moved from Kassel to join a small group of religious dissenters, Pietists, under the leadership of Alexander Mack, with whom he established a community, living in the settlement known as the Hüttental, overlooking the town of Schwanzenau. He had presumably ceased making firearms and in that year became one of the First Eight founding members of the Neu Täufer, or New German Baptists. In 171920, in the face of renewed persecution, the then expanded community fled to Surhuisterveen in the Dutch province of Friesland. The former Schwanzenau community subsequently emigrated from Rotterdam to Philadelphia aboard the Allen, arriving in America on 11 September 1729. It is not known whether George Grebe was among the immigrant party, but in view of the large number of descendants bearing his name in the Germanstown area it would seem likely.

The inspiration for the chiselled designs on our gun, of tightly packed interlaced scrollwork inhabited by monsters, classical figures and grotesques, originated from outside the German cultural tradition. The source is easily confirmed by an examination of the Italian firearms with chiselled lock mechanisms and iron mounts which had developed as an indigenous style in and around the city of Brescia. The Brescian technique achieved the apex of its development by about 1670, but its tradition of chiselling 70

iron, both in relief and in the form of flat lacelike tracery plaques, possessed a character which remained distinct in Europe to the end of the century. Presumably it was from travel to the fashionable city of Venice, the seat of Brescian governance, and from Italian diplomatic gifts of luxury firearms to the courts of the many ruling German houses that the Brescian taste developed in small pockets of Germany.

By the closing decades of the 17th century the firearms imported from Brescia appear to have almost merged, in terms of their style, with the German work produced in emulation of that style, notwithstanding the inevitable German lapses in the grammar of the ornament which today betrays the German origin. To judge, however, from the very small number of surviving examples, it would appear that the neo-Brescian firearms produced were limited to eccentric com­missions scattered within the nobility. None­ theless, the Brescian vogue persisted in Germany at least until the early 1730s, as can be seen from the large quantity of sets of flintlock pistols and short carbines signed gio. botti, which were assembled by an unknown German maker for Ernst August I, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1688–1748) and formerly amassed in the Gewehrkammer at Schloss Ettersburg, Saxony. Unlike our gun by Grebe, the Ettersburg group followed the Brescian decline from skilled and expensive iron chiselling to the use of more economical gilt-brass mounts which were cast in multiples.

While the decoration exhibited on the Grebe gun is certainly the product of a German ironcutter, it is most likely that the wood for the stock was imported from Italy for carving in Germany.

This differs from the Italianate firearms from

Schloss Ettersburg, for which the barrels, the locks and the mounts were almost certainly imported and then mounted by a German gunstocker working in his own national style of the period.

Leonardo da Vinci is credited with the invention of a gun with a metal pre-charged cartridge loaded from the breech. The earliest surviving examples of hand-held breechloaders with separate chambers are two guns believed to have been made for Henry VIII, one of which, with a hinged trapdoor breech, is dated 1537. Similarly, the series of matchlock gun shields made for King Henry’s bodyguard in about 1544 are loaded by way of a lid pivoted at the rear. Throughout the remainder of the 16th century and within the early 17th century, the hinged lidded breech appears to have remained the preferred option, although a German matchlock carbine of about 1600, now in the Bayerischen Nationalmuseum, Munich (no. w 1448), employs a loadable separate chamber released by a sliding bolt passing laterally through the rear of the barrel. This example is effectively a proto-version of the internally released separate chamber used in conjunction with the breakaction system of the present gun. Early examples of break-action guns include a Viennese miquelet-lock rifle made by Franz Jeiadtel, about 1650, and another Viennese miquelet-lock by Michael Gull, about 1660. Grebe’s gun, however, is made the more sophisticated by his adoption of the latest form of the flintlock.

Throughout the second half of the 17th century the search for methods of quickly and safely reloading sporting firearms continued, in parallel with the development of the break-action types. The alternative systems centred on the use of either a movable breech plug acting on a threaded lever action, a complex and expensive option, or on a movable barrel which was required to be unscrewed and replaced for each load. The former concept in fact re-emerged in 1776 with the Ferguson patent rifle, with considerable success at the battle of Brandywine, but disappeared following Fergusson’s death at King’s Mountain in 1780. The latter system, using barrels referred to both as ‘screw-breech’ and ‘turn-off’, was widely adopted owing to the relatively low cost and the desirable quality of obturation, gasseal, afforded by the tightly loaded ball. A further alternative was the use of a captive pivoted chamber, which again enjoyed greater success, primarily in military applications, in Britain, Austria and the United States in the late 18th and well into the 19th century.

The break-action system, with a separate chamber or cartridge, ultimately evolved into the modern classic shotgun. Ingenious further developments of the system were made by some of the leading English gunmakers in the late 17th and first quarter of the 18th century, including Nicholas Paris Senior, Henry Delany, Robert Rowland and James Freeman.

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The introduction of a separate chamber for the charge was a signi­ ficant improvement on the more cumbersome and time-consuming turn-off barrel which had to be operated using a spanner-like key.

A specially fitted belt pouch filled with a quantity of pre-loaded chambers, each carried with the steel in closed position over a primed pan, would have ensured a quick rate of reloading. It is also noteworthy that chambers which included their own pan and steel, possessed the additional benefit of being easy to remove from the breech after being discharged. Although now very rare, examples of these chamber-pouches survive in ancestral gunrooms, some with provision for six, or as many as twelve, chambers each.

On the walls of a number of castles, the hereditary seats of princes and the nobility in Germany, Austria and Bohemia, there remain paintings and engravings of a formal hunt known as the Battue. Introduced from France in the late 17th century, it involved the organised beating of woodland to flush out deer and boar, the game being driven down rides into enclosed clearings in which the sportsmen waited in their protected positions or butts. It is not known to whom our gun belonged but it is probable that it was commissioned by a nobleman, who naturally wished to demonstrate his refinement and taste while engaging in the courtly pursuit of hunting. The very unusual and obviously bespoke Italianate styling of this gun, together with the additional cost of its breechloading system, make it most likely that this gun was made for Karl, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel.

Overall length 47 in  Barrel length 32 in Provenance Private collection, USA

13

A Japanese Face Mask, Ressei Sōmen, circa 1700–20 This superbly embossed mask of iron is con­ structed from a number of elements that can be assembled to form a brilliantly conceived garniture capable of being converted into three different types of face armour or mengu. In its simplest form, the mask would cover the chin and cheeks leaving the nose and mouth exposed, a configuration described as a hanbō or ‘half face’.

Additional protection is gained by adding the nosepiece and converting the mask into a ressei menoshita bō or ‘fierce face below the eyes’. Finally, by adding the upper section the entire face was covered, transforming the mask into what is now described as a ressei sōmen or ‘fierce full face’. The Japanese abhorred the appearance of raw metal, other than that of gold and the steel of blades. As was common for fine pieces of armour, the entire surface of this mask is coated with a controlled coating of rust, sabiji, that allowed the quality of the metal to be seen.

Face armour, called mengu or katchu men, appears in illustrations as early as the 12th century but it was not until the widespread civil wars of the 16th and early 17th century that it came into common use. For all of this terrible period the territorial lords, the daimyō, fought each other for land and the power it brought. Traditional armour, made up from thousands of small rawhide and iron scales laced together with silk braid, had served the samurai well for centuries, but was found to be wanting during the long campaigns that were characteristic of these wars.

A major problem lay with the lacing that added considerable weight to the armour when wet, was difficult to clean and was prone to infestation.

Armourers experimented with new styles and new methods of construction, producing rugged, light and, above all, practical armours with

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greatly reduced amounts of lacing more suited to the demands of these conflicts. It was as part of these new styles, called tosei gusoku or ‘modern sets’, that masks became a standard component for protecting the face. A secondary benefit from this addition was that the mask improved the way in which the helmet was secured. Previously the helmet had been tied around the chin with a soft silk cord, which tended to work loose in action. A mask provided with hooks and posts on the chin and cheeks, to which the cord could be fastened, held the helmet far more securely to the head.

As with all armour, the choice of the type of mask to wear was always a compromise. During the civil wars the hanbō was popular, having the advantage of not interfering with the vision and allowing the wearer to breathe freely. Adding a nosepiece to form a menoshita bō gave increased protection but limited downward vision, especially when the mask was fitted with a moustache, as many were. The sōmen offered even greater protection but severely limited vision, with the consequence that very few were made or worn during this period. Towards the latter part of the Edo period (1603–1868), after a century or so of peace, there was a distinct mood of nostalgia and a yearning for the samurai’s glorious past. Those with the means had sumptuous armours made that were copies of old styles, complete with all the accessories, often including a sōmen for wear on special occasions. This mask was undoubtedly commissioned and made for incorporation into such an armour.

Unlike swordsmiths, who had signed their work and had been the subject of intense study by scholars for centuries, armourers remained virtually anonymous until the 16th century,

mainly because the largely Buddhist population regarded the handling of skins and leather as abhorrent. Later, many helmets and other parts of armours were inscribed with the maker’s name, place of work and often the date; although the present mask is of the highest quality and has been produced by a master armourer, it is unsigned.

A probable reason for this omission is that the mask was commissioned by a high-ranking noble who would not have tolerated a commoner’s name inscribed on his armour. Iida Kazuo, Japan’s leading author on face armour, illustrates this mask and describes it as being the work of the Myōchin, an important group of armourers whose early history is vague and more than a little contentious. What is known about them is that an armourer called Munetoshi, who lived in the Kanada district of Edo, now Tokyo, changed his name to Kunimichi, adopted the name Myōchin, and compiled a spurious genealogy claiming his ancestors had made armour for emperors and famous warriors for centuries. He is also known to have produced helmets and other pieces of armour inscribed with the supposed signatures of his fictitious ancestors. What is not in dispute is that the Myōchin were highly skilled and soon gained a reputation for producing high-quality armours that found favour with rich patrons. As their fame spread, in part because they signed much of their output, pupils and students from all over Japan were attracted to their workshops to be tutored and adopted into the group.

Iida Kazuo expresses the opinion that this mask was made by Myōchin Munenaga, and compares it to another mask that bears the signature: Made by Myōchin Munenaga in Edo at the age of 28, and is dated to 1710. Little else is known about him other than that his real name was Shinpei and that he was either a pupil or possibly the son of Myōchin Munesuke, the son of Kunimichi. Working in Edo, the seat of the shōgun’s court and the location of the mansions where the daimyō had to spend half of their time, would give Munenaga access to an important clientele. The fact that very few pieces signed by 80

Munenaga survive suggests it was from these nobles that he obtained most of his commissions.

Very unusually for a piece of armour made in the early 18th century, our mask has never been included in an armour, being in exactly the same condition as when Munenaga’s customer received it. It was essential that all masks had the interior smoothed by layers of filler and lacquer to prevent them chafing the wearer’s skin. In this case the interior shows no evidence that it has ever been lacquered. We can only speculate why such an hugely expensive piece was never used, but we can be certain because of its exceptional state of pre­ servation that it was treasured as an heirloom in a noble Japanese family until it travelled to Europe.

A very important group of five sōmen form part of the collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Five of the six are the work of members of the Myōchin group, the other (no. 14.100.33) being dated to the 15th century.

Most similar to our mask is that which bears the signature of Myōchin Nobuie (no. 36.25.322a-c).

Like ours it can be subdivided to make three types of mask, but it differs in having teeth, the hinges attaching the brow-piece being external and lacking both a drip tube under the chin and engraving on the eyebrows. Three of the masks in the collection were made by Myōchin Muneakira who, like Kunimichi, lived in the Kanda district of Edo. The first of these (no. 13.112.13), made in 1716 when he was thirty-four years old, differs from our mask in having a far more pronounced chin, having the wrinkles only around the mouth and a totally different treatment of the eyes. The other two masks are very different, representing nonhuman entities, and are only included here for completeness. One (no. 14.100.45), made when he was thirty-one years old in 1713, is modelled as a mythical half-human, crow-like creature called a karasu tengu. These woodland inhabitants were thought to have been exceptionally gifted in the use of the sword, making the wearing of such a mask quite appropriate for a samurai. The other of Muneakira’s non-human masks (no. 19.115.32)

was made in 1745 when he was sixty-three years old and is even more unorthodox in depicting the face of Jikokuten, the Buddhist Heavenly King who guards the East. Although religious symbolism was commonly applied to armour for talismanic reasons, for the wearer of the mask to actually portray himself as a deity is more than a little unusual. Another mask in the Metropolitan Museum’s series (no. 14.100.166) is signed by Myōchin Munekata and is dated by Iida to 1740. Again, while it shows typical Myōchin characteristics and superficially resembles our mask, it differs in having prominent flanges running down either cheek whose function was to protect the helmet tying cord from being cut.

It is also fitted with prognathous teeth giving the mask a rather menacing expression.

Other sōmen survive in museums and private collections around the world. Three are in the

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Museo Orientale in Venice as part of armours that can be dated to the second half of the 18th century. The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco has a sōmen with flanges on either cheek designed to protect the helmet tying cord and an applied iron cut-out of the arrow-head plant on the chin.

Our sōmen is an outstanding example of the work of a Myochin armourer working at the height of the group’s popularity with the nobility of Japan, and made even more exceptional in having survived unchanged for some 250 years since its production.

Height 9½ in Width 7¾ in Provenance A. P. Arman collection Private collection, Belgium

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An Italian Breechloading Repeating Flintlock Gun

by Michele Lorenzoni, Florence, circa 1700 The most significant advantage of a repeating firearm is its ability to enable the shooter to reload and fire quickly and easily. The greatest impediment to this process in the muzzleloading age was the functional requirement for each round to be, in effect, custom made; first a measure of powder to be poured down the barrel, followed by a lead ball wrapped in either paper or a cloth patch, and all pushed down hard with a ramrod to a tight fit in the breech. To this process add the necessity, per shot, to prime the lock with fine-grade powder from a separate flask, close the pan cover and then cock the mechanism, and it will be obvious that great rewards would be open to the inventor able to circumvent this lengthy process.

The earliest fully developed repeat-loading, self-priming and self-cocking mechanism is attributed to the Kalthoff family of gunmakers from Solingen, Germany, within the 1630s. The Kalthoff repeating magazine system quickly found a military application in the form of about fifty guns supplied to the Danish Foot Guards. The surviving guns are preserved in the Tøjhusmuseum, Copenhagen, and include two wheellocks, the remainder being flintlocks.

The reality of the Kalthoff system, however, was that its ingenuity was matched not only by its expense, but also by the extraordinary complexity of its internal arrangement of interdependent gears, levers and springs, with resulting fragility, making it an impractical solution. An alternative repeating magazine system was devised by Sigmund Klett of Salzburg in about 1650 but his system was in fact of even greater complexity than that of Kalthoff.

Prior to about 1660–70 it appears that the pursuit of solutions towards a practical repeating

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system was returning to avenues of invention devised in the previous century. Principally these were the further development of revolving chambers, the development of barrels designed to each take multiple charges superimposed one upon another, to fire in succession, or the simple addition of multiple barrels. The current revolvers and superimposed types were seen as unreliable, some with the possibility of danger to the user, and the addition of barrels provided advantages limited to the number of barrels added and negated by the additional weight and loss of balance.

There is unfortunately no record of the origin of the breakthrough to what has become known as the Lorenzoni system, but it was essentially a refinement and clever simplification of the principles established by Kalthoff. It is known that a gun of this type was made by Giacomo Berselli of Bologna and Rome in the late 1660s or 1670s, which is now in the Musée de l’Armée, Paris. In addition John Cookson, an English gunmaker, built a gun on this system in about 1680, which is now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. History, however, references this comprehensive refinement of the mechanism, which is a masterwork of early engineering, to Michele Lorenzoni, the maker of our elegant repeating magazine gun.

Very little is known of the life of Michele Lorenzoni, which is strange in the face of his significant accomplishments in the development of repeating firearms, the extraordinarily high standard to which they were finished and the distinction of his court patronage. In fact even his birth and death dates are uncertain. We know that he worked in Florence from the early 1680s until late in the 1730s and counted the

Princes Medici, among others, as his patrons.

We also have the evidence of his first firearm to which a recorded date can be ascribed: a gun bought from him by Johann Georg III, Elector of Saxony, in 1684, and now in the former Electoral armoury, Dresden. This gun is signed michael lorenzoni sensis; it has been proposed by the eminent authority L. G. Boccia that Sensis may refer to the Tuscan city of Siena as Lorenzoni’s birthplace. Made towards the end of his working life, a composed gun exists with the lock signed lorenzoni and dated 1737, formerly in the Keller collection in Russia.

With the uncertainty of the start of Lorenzoni’s working life prior to 1684, it is impossible to con­ firm the likelihood of his being the inventor of the system which now bears his name. The evidence of his active interest in the manufacturing of firstquality repeating fire­ arms on several different systems does certainly, however, make this an under­standable proposition. The long-lived success of the repeating magazine system now under discussion was undoubtedly attributable to the perfection of the engineering tolerances achieved in the Lorenzoni workshops, with 17th-century tools, as much to the concept as a whole.

The repeating system on which our gun is built is referred to charmingly in historical shorthand as the system a tutto indietro, literally ‘everything behind’: the ‘everything’ being the tubular magazines for powder and ball which are concealed within the butt and therefore behind the action. The system can only be accurately referred to, however, by the cumbersome description ‘transverse cylinder, lever-operated repeating magazine system’. Despite the modern attachment of Lorenzoni’s name as a plausible and easy means of reference, particularly in the context of 18thcentury English and American developments (the Lorenzoni system), the truth behind Lorenzoni’s claim to the invention remains uncertain. More certain is his invention of two further repeating magazine systems, each of which was built on a fixed breech. These are referred to as the systems a tutto avanti and misto: ‘everything in front’ and

‘mixed’. In the case of the former the tubular magazines for powder and for ball are placed below the barrel, in front of the action. With the mixed system Lorenzoni positioned one magazine below the barrel and another was concealed within the butt. In each of the fixed breech systems the loading operation was entirely gravity based, and employed sequential moving cut-offs to ensure the required measures of powder and ball were delivered in the correct order.

Another repeating magazine gun by Michele Lorenzoni, identical to our gun in all but minor details, is preserved in the Real Armeria, Turin.

The engraving on the Turin example involves subjects from mythology which differ naturally from those on our gun but appear nonetheless to be part of a shared cycle of ornament. Both guns are very finely engraved in the Parisian style characteristic of the small clutch of gunmakers then working for the Florentine court. The overall compositions were most probably inspired by the designs for firearms ornament published by Jean Berain in 1659 and 1667, and the figural subjects from mythology perhaps related to a series of engravings by Simone Cantarini or da Pesaro (1612–48): the two guns are certainly engraved by the same hand. Another, also similar, together with a pair of Lorenzoni repeating pistols dated 1695, is in the former Imperial collection, the Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer, Vienna (nos d 371 and a .1446/7).

The crowned monogram mark struck towards the breech of our gun, the so-called Medici mark, is referred to in all authoritative studies of late 17th- and early 18th-century firearms associated with the Florentine princely court. The significance of this mark has also been discussed in the commentary made in our last catalogue on a pair of pistols by Matteo Acqua Fresca, one of which was dated 1725, and on which the mark is also stamped. Our commentary makes the point that Ferdinando III d’Medici died in 1713 and it is difficult therefore to argue the case for this mark as a stamp of princely ownership. The identical mark is also found on the Tuscan barrel of a 87

Viennese gun made for Joseph Wenzel, Prince of Liechtenstein. These marks, if not intended to identify ownership, were probably intended by Tuscan barrelmakers to indicate a superior level of quality.

The likelihood is that the enigmatic monogram, as a stamped mark, was in fact copied from the few original Medici ownership monograms, and arose from the natural inclination of Tuscan barrelmakers to impart a sense of importance.

The original princely monograms variously appear inlaid or engraved within the ornament on firearms made for Ferdinando III d’Medici, Gran Principe di Toscana.

Of particular relevance to our gun is the example of a genuine monogram engraved on the repeating gun (a tutto indietro) definitely made

by Lorenzoni for Ferdinando III and now in the Bargello Museum in Florence. Lorenzoni also made another repeating gun for the same patron, on the system a tutto avanti. In this instance the Medici coat of arms of the Gran Principe di Toscana appears in place of the monogram. In addition, there is once again the close similarity between the mythical figural subjects engraved on this gun, and those which appear on our gun. A further Medici ownership monogram, of interest as a comparable example, is inlaid on the butt of an English gun by Andrew Dolep, also made for Ferdinando III d’Medici.

Surviving examples of Lorenzoni’s repeating firearms are rare, with only a little more than thirty recorded in institutional collections world­ wide. The precise origin of the Lorenzoni system and the identity of its true inventor appear to be of little account when weighed against the long-lived popularity of the system in both Britain and in North America. Firearms were built on the Lorenzoni rotary breech system in Boston Massachusetts, first by John Cookson II (related to the English maker of that name) in 1756, and by John Pim, evidently in 1766.

Lorenzoni firearms even became the subject of study by 19th-century firearms manufacturers of the machine age. Examples of both Kalthoff’s

and Lorenzoni’s systems were obtained by Oliver Winchester, founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and are today held in the Cody Firearms Museum as part of the original Winchester collection. In Britain, as late as 1780–1800, the Lorenzoni system enjoyed considerable success, the design unaltered, now in the guise of repeating firearms produced by leading makers of the day. A perfect example is provided by the important pistol by William Grice which was included in our most recent catalogue. Others were made in the workshops of the celebrated London gunmaker Harvey Walklate Mortimer, Gunmaker to His Majesty.

He copied the original designs of Michele Lorenzoni so slavishly as to frequently include on the cover of the priming-magazine the birdof-prey similarly positioned on our gun made one hundred years earlier.

The full complex operational sequence of Michele Lorenzoni’s repeating rotary breech system is set out in a carefully detailed stepby-step illustrated guide published by the late Dr Thomas Hoopes, former curator of the St Louis City Art Museum. This forms part of his discussion of the system and for this purpose Hoopes used illustrations of one of a pair of Lorenzoni repeating pistols from the celebrated collection of William Goodwin Renwick; illustrations of the dismantled components are also included. With the obvious exception of their silver mounts, this pair of pistols also compares very closely with both our superb gun and with its much published counterpart in Turin.

Overall length 51¾ in Barrel length 32¾ in Provenance Château de Gourdon, France

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15

A German Hunting Sword, Fromery Workshops, Berlin, circa 1750 As the 18th century progressed, hunting swords developed through their increasingly delicate proportions to the status of luxurious accoutrements, an essential element of a correct hunting wardrobe or Jagdgarnitur. Originally conceived as a short, wieldy weapon for lastditch protection against a boar or bear, or for the administering of the coup de grâce, these weapons became ever more symbolic after about 1730. Nevertheless, blades remained properly forged and functional should the need arise. Not surprisingly, sword cutlers exploited the desires of their noble patrons and vied to set the pace of fashion, in tandem with their development of designs for the smallswords or degen of court and city wear. Whereas German smallswords of the period 1770–90 are today occasionally seen with painted porcelain grips produced at the Meissen factory, by which date the production of Berlin enamels had dwindled, it is virtually unknown for a Berlin enamel sword to have survived. Notwithstanding the obvious fragility of enamels, very few were in fact produced, and certainly few in comparison to the output of Meissen hilts. A fine example of a hunting sword with a Meissen hilt of about 1750 is in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, England. The differences between this hilt and the Fromery hilt are immediately clear; while imaginative in its form and very finely

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painted, the Meissen hilt could almost appear austere by comparison. The present hilt is typical of Berlin enamel, characterised not merely by fine painting, but by a lightness of touch and a vitality brought by the abundant use of gilded reliefs, a feature much favoured by Fromery and not found on hilts produced outside of France.

Prior to the English advent of transfer printing on porcelain and enamel, a cheaper and readily com­mercial device never used in 18th-century Germany, Berlin had achieved recognition through­ out Europe as the most prolific and influential centre for the manufacturing of luxurious enamel wares. This reputation was centred on the workshop of Pierre Fromery, which he established in Berlin following his arrival in 1685 and ran until his death in 1738. A superb example of Fromery enamelware is a pair of candlesticks from the Rita & Frits Markus Collection, now preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In their overall character and many details these pieces provide a fruitful comparison with the hilt of our sword; the treatment, for example, of the gold-covered classical profile heads is identical. Similarly, a pair of gilt and polychrome beakers attributed to Charles Fromery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (no. 64.101.395–6) also shares characteristics with our hilt. Alexander Fromery succeeded his father Pierre in 1738, and under his

control the business burgeoned in the mid-18th century, notably in the production of imaginative galanterie, including bonbonnièrs shaped as shoes and barges, snuffboxes, cane handles and centrepiece ornaments.

Pierre Fromery was a French Huguenot who with thousands of others had fled religious persecution in France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The enlightened Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm Duke of Prussia, encouraged a significant migration of Huguenots to Berlin with the offer of freedom from taxes for ten years and the freedom to practise their religion in French. The Huguenots were renowned for their accomplishments across a wide range of commercial and artistic endeavours. In so doing, the Elector provided the state of Brandenburg Prussia with an influx of acumen with natural benefits both to its economy and to the cultural standing of Berlin in Europe.

The Fromery family evidently embraced this opportunity with vigour. Pierre is recorded in the Hugenottenmuseum in Berlin also as a gunmaker, although the record does not distinguish between him and his son, also Pierre, and also a gunmaker, who was born about 1701 and died in 1782. Pierre Fromery senior, famed for his enamel wares, was actively engaged in gunmaking from about 1700 to 1730 and is also recorded as a metalworker and goldsmith. He sold a wide variety of objets de vertu, of iron and silver, glass and porcelain.

Pierre’s surviving firearms are constructed in the distinctive Berlin fashion and finished to a high standard, characteristically involving finely engraved bold bronze barrels and locks. His son Alexander additionally published prints and made his name a little Germanic by signing alex fromerÿ a berlin.

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The process of painting in enamel colours on a white enamel ground was the invention of the French goldsmith Jean I. Tontin in about 1620–30, and the additional use of gold was recorded at the Saint-Cloud porcelain factory by the British scientist Dr Martin Lister writing in 1698. In France in the early 18th century there were two principal methods for the application of gold to porcelains and enamels. One was to apply so-called paillions, designs die-stamped from gold foil. The other was to apply gold in powder form mixed with a glassy flux to achieve adhesion to a surface under heat, which would provide a sufficiently strong surface to resist burnishing and normal wear. Alternatively, a thin gold foil was pressed into a die, backed with a vitrifiable medium and applied to the chosen surface under heat. Both stamped methods were used by Fromery, and our hilt follows the latter course, the gold being applied over the raised details within the decorative plan, a device strongly favoured by the Fromery workshop and evidently brought by them from France. The purple and blue enamelled trellis pattern picked out in gold dots is also a Fromery trait found throughout their range of enamel ware; see, for example, the previously mentioned pair of beakers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The vibrancy of the gilding and enamelled colours of this sword bring to mind the royal hunting castle of Grünewald outside Berlin, and the colour and spectacle of the Prussian court hunt. Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia (1688–1740) achieved in one season a personal tally of 3,602 boar driven in the French manner, within enclosures and hunting lanes towards the sportsmen in their prepared butts.

The north German rococo, the cultural style encapsulated in the enamel products of the Fromery workshops and no less in this sword, expanded to its pinnacle under Friedrich II, ‘the Great’ (1712–86), creator of the magnificent rococo palace of Sanssouci in Potsdam.

Overall length 23¼ in Blade length 17½ in Provenance Private collection, Germany

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16

A French Louis XVI Dress Smallsword and Scabbard, Mounted in Gold, Diamonds and Enamel, Paris, circa 1784 The final decades of the French ancien régime were renowned for the material excesses of the nobility, luxuriating within the salons of Paris and about the environs of the royal court at Versailles. By the cultural standards embodied there, this sword is an exemplary achievement of great elegance and genteel taste. The solid gold con­struction of the hilt and scabbard mounts was, in the late 18th century, a rare level of luxury: a level, in fact, reserved for the swords of honoured persons of national importance, foreign dignitaries bearing important treaties, members of the royal family or the extremely rich. The addition in this instance of an unsparing yet tasteful quantity of diamonds, set off to their full against enamels, further elevates this sword to the ownership of a man without pressing material concerns of any description.

A design survives for a sword hilt intended for Louis VXI, made in 1784 by the Parisian goldsmith Pierre-Alexandre Bretet, and set with

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jewels by Georges-Frédéric Bapst. Unfortunately the sword itself was stolen from the royal Gardes Meubles in the burglary of the crown jewels in 1792. A later member of the Bapst family, also Frédéric, made the silver-hilted épée à clavier set with diamonds which was used by Charles X at his coronation in 1824.

In terms of its rare opulence and implicit prestige, the present sword may even also be compared with the ceremonial sword, the socalled épée du sacre, made for Napoleon Bonaparte by the virtuoso goldsmith Nicolas Noël Boutet.

Similar to ours, the hilt of Napoleon’s sword is also of solid gold, as one would expect, and inset with forty-two diamonds. Unlike our sword, the hilt of this example is decorated in the neoclassical taste, the art-historical movement which followed the abrupt ending of the earlier royalist period to which our sword belongs.

Napoleon wore it both as Premier Consul and as l’Empereur; the sword is clearly shown in his

portrait painted by Robert Lefève, now preserved in the Musée national du Château de Versailles. Napoleon’s épée du sacre itself is in the Musée national du Château de Fontainebleu.

Regrettably few pre-Revolutionary makers of Parisian gold and silver sword hilts have been identified, and it is thought that many among them were jewellers specialising in gold boxes, étuis and trinkets for the super-rich, making sword hilts to special order; one such is Joseph-Étienne Blerzy. The late A. V. B. Norman, the authority on decorated swords of the period, has suggested that the majority of these hilts were in fact made by the fourbisseurs (sword cutlers) whose corporation had obtained the rights for them to make gold and silver hilts in 1627, on the condition that the precious metals were purchased from goldsmiths.

The signature of the fourbisseur etched on the blade of this magnificent sword includes the address of his place of business and reads: bougues & giverne son gendre mds

fourbysseur rue de la vielle boucherie à l’epée royale à paris

The sword cutler Étienne Giverne is recorded working in Paris between 1745–55 and 1774–7 as marchand-fourbisseur to two companies of the mousquetaires du roy. The present lengthened version of his signature was introduced following his marriage to Catherine Geneviève Bougues on 8 January 1751, whom he presumably also introduced as a working partner. To judge from the style of the blade and the hilt on which it is mounted, Bougues & Giverne must have continued making blades into the 1780s.

Within the elaborate gilt decoration on the blade there are brief and somewhat corrupt Latin inscriptions etched repeatedly, alluding to gentlemanly conduct, one obscure, apparently reading amoris vini alla castra and another, sperit humillia vertus (sic, for spernit humilia virtus, ‘worth spurns lowly things’). The inscription etched at the base of the blade in addition to the maker’s signature reads: de la fabrique de la marque au raisin: this is in effect a trade-mark inscription present on other Parisian blades of the period.

By repute, our sword has a significant historical connection with France through the Swabian line of the Hohenzollerns, which accords with its known provenance. Amalie Zephyrin von SalmKyrburg, Princess zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1760–1841), was married to Prince Anton Aloys zu Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1762–1831). Princess Amalie lived in Paris from 1786 until her death.

Between early March to the end of July 1794 she gave protection to Eugène and Hortense de Beauharnais, the children of Joséphine, Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, following the imprisonment of both parents during the ‘Reign of Terror’. The children’s father 98

was guillotined on 23 July; Joséphine was saved by the fall of Robespierre and the ending of ‘the Terror’. Joséphine subsequently became first the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte and then his wife in March 1796. Hortense in turn married Louis Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon, and became the maternal grandmother of the Emperor Napoleon III. For her great service it seems entirely possible that the Princess Amalie would receive a fitting gift of recognition. It is therefore quite plausible that this is perhaps the sword of the executed Vicomte de Beauharnais, and by extension an iconic artefact of the Napoleonic line.

At some date within the 19th century the sword was returned to France, and the French gold import marked accordingly on the hilt. The sword was then re-exported to Germany, presumably following the death of Princess Amalie in Paris in 1841, where it was returned to the collection of the Princes Hohenzollern, and subsequently placed in their castle at Sigmaringen.

Overall length 38¾ in Blade length 31⅝ in Provenance The Princes Hohenzollern Dietrich Stürken collection

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17

An English Smallsword with Cased Cut-steel Hilt

by Matthew Boulton, circa 1795 To thine ownself be true In London at the end of the 18th century a luxurious sword such as this would be retailed by a cutler, who would also supply a wide range of luxury goods and other necessities for a gentleman’s wardrobe. Some of these would, for example, include buckles and buttons of cut steel designed to match a sword hilt. Invariably these small items were made in the same workshops as the sword hilts, almost always in a specialist workshop run by a maker and designer entirely separate to the retail trade. In this instance the cutler was William Gray of Bond Street (1764– 1846). He is mentioned in the London ratebooks of the period but more significantly he is also recorded in the Royal Archives at Windsor (no. 26273), in an invoice dated 1790. The invoice reads: ‘Wm. Gray, Goldsmith, Jeweller, and Cutler, To their Royal Highnesses the prince of wales and duke of york, No. 13 New Bond Street, London’. The 1794 edition of The General London

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Guide records the firm as being ‘by appointment to their Majesties’: Gray’s business continued at 14 New Bond Street until 1823, and one wonders if he received payment by this date for the goods supplied to the notorious royal households.

William’s half-brother Thomas Gray, also a leading and fashionable cutler, was immortalised

by Jane Austin as ‘Gray’s of Sackville Street’, to which the Miss Dashwoods went to negotiate the exchange of jewellery, in Sense and Sensibility.

The superb quality of our sword immediately suggests Matthew Boulton as its designer and maker. Incomparable in the production of English decorative cut steel, Boulton (1728–1809) was a dynamic commercial force but strangely had no background as an artisan. He founded his Soho factory in Birmingham in 1762, collaborated with Josiah Wedgwood in the addition of porcelain plaques to some of his hilts and employed between 800 to 1,000 men, not including out-workers.

A range of 171 of Boulton’s original designs for cut-steel sword hilts are included in the sixty-four-page manuscript in the Birmingham City Archives entitled ‘The Boulton and Watt Pattern Books’. The first sheet is dated 1775 and the manuscript continues through the 1780s, including many small items such as sword tassels, buttons, sword carriers and chatelaines: there are in total about 1,469 design drawings.

In the promotion of his steel products Boulton was tireless, with sales throughout Europe. In the furtherance of international marketing he made a special point of cultivating the ambassadors and consular officers of St James’s, notably Sir William Hamilton at the court of Naples and Lord Cathcart, ambassador to Russia.

The archive in Birmingham contains much evidence of his correspondence, including that conducted with Benjamin Franklin.

The evidence of his correspondence of March and April 1785 with his partner John Scale concerning orders for the London cutler Thomas Gray, mentioned above, confirms Boulton’s role as the supplier of hilts to Gray and to other members of the London sword trade.

This evidence, together with that of existing hilts identified in the Boulton pattern book, provides fresh confirmation of the breadth of Boulton’s trading and his importance within this area of luxury production. The late authority A. V. B. Norman, writing prior to 1980, provides a great depth of information on the broad picture of the production and design of decorated steel hilts throughout Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century. In his exhaustive survey of the subject Norman provides a wealth of evidence in portraiture.

The original owner of our sword was Colonel Lord Evelyn James Stuart (1773–1842), politician and soldier, second son of John Stuart, First Marquis of Bute. The sword, complete with its original hiltbox covered with red morocco leather and lined in satin, descended through a cadet branch of the Crichton-Stuart family (the name Crichton assumed by royal licence in 1805) until our purchase in 2012, together with a companion sword also from William Gray.

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Evelyn James Stuart was elected to the House of Commons in February 1794, succeeding his deceased elder brother, Lord Mount Stuart, but was not permitted to take his seat in Parliament until his twenty-first birthday in June of that year. Evelyn Stuart represented his constituency until replaced by his younger brother William in 1802. William’s death in 1814 returned Evelyn to the Commons until 1818, then being replaced by his nephew, Lord Patrick Crichton-Stuart. Lord Evelyn was commissioned into the 7th Regiment of Foot in 1791. He subsequently purchased a captaincy in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards and in 1797 a majority in the 66th of Foot. In the same year he became lieutenant-colonel in the 21st by purchase, and in 1802 transferred to the 22nd of Foot, in which regiment he was promoted brevet colonel. In his time in the Guards Lord Evelyn had taken to sporting a lengthy moustache. Appearing thus in the House of Commons, he was one day addressed: ‘My Lord, now the war is over, won’t you put your moustaches on the peace establishment?’ He replied, ‘I don’t know exactly whether I shall do that, but meanwhile I would advise you to put your tongue on the civil list.’ The Commons were at this time debating the payment to the Civil List.

Overall length 41 in Blade length 32⅝ in Provenance Colonel Lord Evelyn James Stuart (1773–1842) Thence by descent until 2012

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18

A French Épée de luxe with Gold and Porcelain Hilt, Presented to King Fernando VII of Spain, Goldmaker’s Mark of Antoine-Modeste Fournera, the Presentation Inscription Dated 1816 El Capitano General das Milicias, al Rey Nuestro Señor, Real Fábrica de Toledo, Año 1816 The Captain General of the Militia, to our Lordship the King, The Royal Factory of Toledo, in the year 1816 Antoine-Modeste Fournera registered his mark in Paris in 1806. He is first recorded working at 8 rue de Perpignan, thence from 1811–17 at 28 rue Neuve-St Nicolas. Early in his career Fournera distinguished himself among the Parisian fourbisseurs by his innovative publishing in 1808 of an illustrated pamphlet of seventyeight original designs for sword hilts, which he distributed commercially. The designs were executed by an engraver signed adam and the pages of the surviving copy are stamped Deposé à la Bibliotheque Impériale, a forward-thinking act which would have ensured that the designs would legally henceforth be preserved and remain viewable to be commissioned by the leading patrons of the period. The complete series of engravings is today lodged in the Bibliothèque Nationale: of these, a single page of fifteen of Fournera’s designs for épée hilts for generals and senior officers is reproduced in Pétard. The page includes one with a classical warrior’s head pommel closely comparable to that representing Achilles on our sword hilt.

Fournera’s use of a fine brilliant white porcelain ground as the means to further project the imagery of this gold hilt appears to have been unique in Paris within this period. He was perhaps influenced by the slightly earlier brief collaboration between Matthew Boulton 108

and Josiah Wedgwood in England, in which Wedgwood’s porcelain Jasperware plaques were set into the diamond-like brilliance of Boulton’s burnished cut-steel hilts. Contrary to the Boulton and Wedgwood hilts however, in which the steel served as the background, Founera’s hilt uses the porcelain to throw the goldwork into greater focus. Fournera is known in the instance of at least one sword hilt to have followed the German 18th-century practice of using coloured hardstone to juxtapose his goldwork, but whether or not some further influence existed, it is almost certain that Fournera had broken new ground as a fourbisseur in Paris. In 1816 there were three leading porcelain factories in Paris: Dihl et Guérhard, Nast, and Dagoty et Honoré. Of these, Dihl et Guérhard produced the finest white porcelain. Their premises were situated almost on the corner of rue du Temple and boulevard Saint-Martin, only a few steps away from Fournera then working at rue NeuveSt Nicolas. The obvious conclusion would be that Fournera took natural advantage of these serendipitous circumstances and collaborated with Dihl et Guérhard on the hilt intended for King Fernando VII. The eminence of Fournera’s standing as a Parisian goldsmith and fourbisseur is confirmed by the ranks and political importance of many

of the recipients of his swords; the quality of the present hilt is easily comparable to that of his contemporary virtuosos Nicolas Noël Boutet and Martin-Guillaume Biennais. Examples include an officer’s épée de luxe with Empire hilt of silvergilt made by Fournera for Joseph-Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor’s elder brother, King of Naples and Ferdinand VII’s predecessor on the Spanish throne from 1808–13. In common with the present hilt Fournera inset the grip with the figure of Victory.

A further example is the presentation hunting sword with silver-gilt hilt and scabbard mounts by Fournera which is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (no.

1982.136). This sword was commissioned by François Pirmet, Gunmaker to His Majesty the King of Westphalia (Jérôme-Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor’s younger brother) and bears the monogram of Prince Camillo Borghese (1775–1832), brother-in-law to both Jérôme and to the Emperor; the sword most likely being a wedding gift from the former.

Yet another distinguished owner of a sword made by Fournera was the celebrated soldier Michel Ney (1769–1815), maréchal d’Empire, duc d’Elchingen , prince de la Moskowa, and Napoleon’s ‘le Brave des Braves’. The sword in question is also silver-mounted, the model designed by Fournera for wear by officers of the Grenadiers de la Garde Imperial. Ney’s sword is included in the group of objects belonging to him which his family submitted to the Musée de l’Armée in Paris in 1964.

The presentation of our sword with its Parisian gold hilt may initially appear at odds with the popular dismissal of the French King José I, particularly in view of the war damage inflicted on Spain since 1808, and not least as a reflection of the donor’s naked intent on preserving his favour with Don Fernando, openly volatile since his pronouncement of absolute monarchy in May 1814. On reflection however, the material influence of the former regime was not a legacy quickly eradicated from within the upper tiers 110

of Spanish society, even beyond the ranks of the ‘Frenchified’, the proscribed afrancesados. With recent exposure to the luxurious swords from Paris and Versailles carried by senior Napoleonic officers and members of the Bonapartist court, it would not be surprising that a Spanish royalist officer, himself a figure of power and wealth, would look to Paris to obtain the very finest quality, in the expectant knowledge that his gift would be received as a regal treasure and not fail to register the utmost degree of his loyalty.

The Spanish origin of the commissioning of this hilt is evidenced by the inclusion of the patriotic plaque set into the shellguard, the subject being intrinsic to the presentation. We can further assume that it was for the preservation of national honour that the blade and the scabbard were ordered from the renowned Real Fábrica de Espadas de Toledo, which had been founded by Carlos III in 1761, and that these were mounted in the Fournera workshop.

Further appreciation both of the circumstances surrounding the presentation of this sword and of its iconographic qualities requires a brief historical synopsis, beginning with the concluding years of the War of Independence in Spain (1808–14), known otherwise as the Peninsula War, and extending to the complex political turmoil of 1814–16.

The Spanish role in the eventual AngloSpanish military successes against the French had devolved principally to that of guerrilla war­ fare, rooted in the civil rising in Madrid on 2 May 1808, and subsequently spread as organised guerrilla armies throughout the provincial and larger rural populations, in support of the exiled Don Fernando ‘El Deseado’ (the desired one). The resulting shift in effective military leadership away from the aristocracy gave additional ground to a swell of liberal ambitions within the Cádiz Cortes, the legislature in exile, and what emerged from this was the Constitution of 1812, ostensibly supported by Fernando and those royalists existing at that time as a majority throughout all ranks of the Guerrilleros.

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Following the peace settlement offered by Napoleon in 1813, Fernando VII entered Valencia to great popular rejoicing on 6 April the following year. Immediately upon his restoration, incited by the ultra-monarchist plot leader, General Francisco Javier Elío, the Captain General of Valencia, Fernando declared an abrupt about face. On 4 May 1814 he decreed the abolition of the 1812 Constitution and the abolition of the authority of the Cortes, which General Eguía, his newly appointed Captain General of Madrid, dissolved on 11 May. In place of these Fernando pronounced himself absolute monarch; there began six years of ferocious reactionary repression against a background of national financial ruin, and mitigated only by military success in 1815 against the revolt in the Spanish colony of New Spain, now Mexico.

The Spanish army engaged against the Mexican revolt was commanded by General Félix María Calleja del Rey (1750–1826), who had been vigorously and successfully committed against the rebels since 1810. His force numbered 50,000 regulars and militia and he had himself played a leading part in the conception and raising of a royalist militia in Mexico to fight alongside the regulars, affirming the loyalty in so doing of a significant segment of the rural population.

In 1816 de Calleja, an ardent ultra-monarchist since the restoration, additionally overthrew his commanding general in the northern provinces, Augustín de Iturbide, whom he had exposed for his ambivalence to the Crown. Del Calleja returned in triumph to Madrid in 1816, to promotion and a title, was appointed by his king Captain General of Andalusia, and hailed as the saviour of New Spain for the empire and with it the wealth of that land.

The appointment of captain general was the highest rank in the Spanish military hierarchy and it was through his regional framework of royalist captain generals that the king now ruled Spain. Fernando VII additionally charged de Calleja with recruiting an expeditionary force to regain control of the South American territories 112

and so re-open their springs of wealth, but by 1820 he had been removed from office by the short-lived liberal ascendancy.

In view of the timing of his salient success, of his conception of a militia, of the importance of his planned military expedition and in the absence of an otherwise named figure, del Calleja is a strong candidate as the officer who may well have presented our gold sword.

In September 1816 Fernando VII and his brother Don Carlos de EspaĂąa married sisters, whom were also their nieces, on the 29th and the 22nd respectively, and it was possibly on the occasion of his marriage to Maria Isabel Francisca, Infanta of Portugal, that Fernando VII received the sword.

The iconography of the sword hilt is open however, to paradoxical interpretation. Taken at face value the neoclassical emblems invoke the intended recognition of Fernando VII as absolute monarch, victor of Spain’s war against Napoleon and returning hero. That he displayed an absence of heroism in exile is as nothing in the face of the devastation meted out to the Spanish people as a consequence of his tyrannical rule. The sword pommel formed as the head of Achilles is of particular interest, arguably a paradoxical device intended by Fournera. Again at face value, Achilles is known as the greatest warrior of the Trojan War and the slayer of Hector: a natural choice of imagery with which to represent the victorious king. Conversely, however, the name

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Achilles has as its origin a combination of akhos (grief) and laos (a people or nation): therefore the head of Achilles may alternatively represent the ‘Grief of Spain’ under Fernando, a widely held sentiment even by 1816.

The figural vignette on the shellguard of the hilt, though brazenly patriotic by comparison, may also acquire an alternative resonance when viewed with the benefit of historical hindsight.

The figures show the honest ploughman embracing the call to the milicias extended by his regimental comrade, the two now brothers in the service of the king.

The reality of the condition of Spain following the conclusion of the war with France forms a grim contrast with the imagery on Fournera’s sword hilt. In fear of liberal loyalties within the ranks of the Spanish militia opposing the requirements of his absolute monarchy, Fernando had in fact disbanded the twenty-nine regiments of provincial militia within four months of their formation. In October 1814 Fernando reestablished a provincial militia of his choosing, with a strength of forty-two regiments which enabled him to fend off several attempted coups.

The Milicia Nacional however, speedily dissolved by royal decree on 4 May 1814, remained so until the military coup or pronunciamiento led in January 1820 by Major Raphael de Rigo, brought its subsequent re-instatement in April of that year. Fernando VII remained on his throne with the pre-condition of his acceptance of the Constitution of 1812, bringing a brief period of tranquillity prior to the resurgence of Absolutism within the second part of his reign.

Overall length 38 in Blade length 31 in Provenance Dietrich Stürken collection

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19

A Pair of Spanish Percussion Chiselled and Damascened Pistols and their Accessories, of Exhibition Quality, the workshops of Eusebio Zuloaga, Eibar or Madrid, circa 1847–55 Of Basque descent, Eusebio Zuloaga (1808–98) was born into a strong family tradition of gunmaking. Alonso de Zuloaga is first recorded as a gunmaker in Sevilla in 1695; early in the 18th century the business moved to Eibar and was established in Madrid in 1768. Eusebio’s father, Blas Zuloaga, despite not being himself a manufacturing gunmaker, held several royal appointments including, from 1834, that of Honoury Chief Armourer, Armero Mayor to the Royal Armoury, where he later assisted in the preparation of the landmark catalogue of the collection published in 1849. Eusebio was therefore naturally sent, in 1822, to learn gunmaking from his uncle in Placencia, where he remained until about 1830. In that year Eusebio was sent to Paris to work for the renowned firm of LePage.

The LePage family had achieved fame as the gunmakers to Louis XVI, the Emperor Napoleon and the restored Bourbon monarchs. Eusebio subsequently worked at the royal arms factories at St Etienne, returning to Madrid in 1833. Two records survive however, which reveal that in 1838 (or 9) Eusebio was still not satisfied with the level of knowledge which he had acquired, and consequently he returned to Paris to devote himself exclusively to metallurgical art and to visit the Belgian gunmaking factories. Shortly after 1840 Eusebio had opened his own arms manufactory in Eibar, principally for making gun barrels, which within the decade was running in conjunction with his new premises in Madrid. From here Eusebio established his reputation, an early recognition being the award of a Silver medal for firearms at the 1845 Madrid Exposition of Spanish Industry. The story of Eusebio Zuloaga’s transition from technician to 116

artist is sufficiently complex to be the subject of existing studies of considerable depth. The reader is referred appropriately to the published works of the pre-eminent Zuloaga scholar, the late Professor James D. Lavin.

Exhibiting in London, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, Eusebio Zuloaga displayed a range of his uniquely chiselled and damascened weapons, including two pairs of pistols and their matching accessories. A coloured lithograph from Digby Wyatt’s survey of the exhibits shows one pistol from each pair together with a powder flask and bullet mould. The uppermost pistol is of an identical configuration to our pair under discussion, as is the bullet mould. The decorative plan is essentially different from that on the present set, although the close similarity of the border ornaments and the inclusion of 16thcentury warriors strengthen the comparison. It is the very close technical comparison however, which provides a firm tie, not only to the Zuloaga workshops, but also to the date at which the Zuloagas were manufacturing in this style in preparation for the exhibition. Another pair of pistols formerly in the John Woodman Higgins Armory, Worcester, Massachusetts, are of exactly the same form, signed zuloaga en madrid ano de 1847, and are illustrated together with their full complement of accessories. This set was included in the 1961 Higgins catalogue but is now regrettably missing from the collection since 1978. They are damascened with a tile-like diaper pattern filled with finely chiselled masks and trophies of weapons and armour alternating with gold-damascened foliage. This arrangement is probably best described as exuberant, drawing strongly on Iberian decorative traditions. In these

characteristics the Higgins set is clearly related by a common workshop to the visually arresting treatment of our pistols and their accessories, in which barely a space is left without decoration.

The distinctive shape of the pistol pommels is doubly significant. Their form bears an obvious similarity to the pommels found on the ancient swords, espada falcata, adopted from the Greeks by the AndalucĂ­ans. While the 19th-century designer has somewhat exaggerated their proportions, the bulbous beak with its rearfacing spur cleverly invokes not only a symbol of ancient Iberian power and civilisation, but also the traceable origin of the great art of Iberian damascening. Two 4th-century Iberian swords cited by Lavin (1997), are decorated with silver wire spirals and concentric patterns, a very distant projection of these is a feature of the cartouche patterns on the present pistols.

Of additional relevance to the attribution and dating of the present pistols and accessories is the existence of a Zuloaga sword of exhibition type preserved in the Philadelphia Art Museum (no. 1977.167.659a); the blade is signed eusebio zuloaga and dated 1849. The original designs for the hilt, one similarly dated, form two sheets of a series of original hand-coloured drawings recently discovered; the dated sheet is signed mateo orbea , presumably a draughtsman designer working for the Zuloagas in Madrid.

In common with the pistols, the pommel of this sword is also inspired by that of the Iberian falcata. In common with both the pistols and their accessories the decorative pattern on the hilt involves a comparable series of warriors in 16thcentury dress. The hilt also includes a number of bearded grotesques with tapering half-bodies much resembling those chiselled about the percussion bolsters and over the ramrod pipes; these and the warrior figures are also the subjects of several expanded individual studies added to one sheet of the hilt designs.

Datable points of reference such as these are greatly helpful in the absence of a detailed chronological record of the Zuloagas’ work. The

prominent inclusion of warrior subjects within the design of the sword hilt, in common also with one pair of Zuloaga’s pistols for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the detailed trophies on the Higgins set, provides us with another dateable stylistic link with the present pistols.

This also prompts the suggestion that it was no coincidence that Zuloaga used an arms and armour theme in a cycle of works beginning in 1847 and which probably continued briefly beyond 1851. Eusebio was, through the evidence of his own words, a student of medieval and Renaissance arms, and he was apparently also a keen collector. Within the period of his father’s tenure at the Real Armería, Eusebio had taken on the restoration of selected important pieces of damascened armour in the collection which had been damaged by neglect and fire. We know that Eusebio embraced this unique opportunity to further his understanding of damascening techniques, which he applied to the advancement of his own works. His inclusion of a wide range of miniature armoured figures within his designs is most likely a natural consequence of the time he spent working in the Armería, particularly within the brief period framing the re-opening of the Royal Armoury in 1849.

The exhibition sword of Eusebio Zuloaga which appears next in this catalogue shares with these pistols and their accessories the theme of armoured figures as the primary reference point within the decorative plan. The figural subjects on the sword are, of course, representative of warriors from mythology rather than from the 16th century, but the theme nonetheless forms a link between our pistols and the sword in Philadelphia. As three related and early designs from the Zuloaga workshops, these pieces provoke further study of the formative designs of this exceptional family of metalworkers.

Overall length 14 in Barrel length 7¾ in Case dimensions 22 in × 14¼ in × 5⅞ in

i.

The accessories, shown here actual size, are formed in imaginative and elaborate shapes characteristic of Zuloaga and are chiselled, damascened and blued en suite with the pistols.

The figural subjects are chiselled partly in the attitudes of opposing warriors and are shown in an expanded range of armours, together with further bearded demon masks and small arrangements of fruit and flowers.

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ii.

Comprising: i. Bullet mould ii. Bag-shaped powder flask iii. T-shaped nipple wrench iv. Turnscrew v. Lidded cap box vi. Casting ladle Provenance: Private collection, USA

iii.

v.

iv.

vi.

20

A Spanish Exhibition Sword and Scabbard, Chiselled, Repoussé and Damascened by Eusebio Zuloaga, in the 16th-century Mannerist Fashion, circa 1850–5 Eusebio Zuloaga (1808–98) began his career as a gunmaker, first apprenticed from 1822–7 to his uncle Ramón in Placencia near Eibar, then working for the celebrated LePage family in Paris and at the royal arms factory in St Etienne until his return to Madrid in 1833. He also studied the decorative treatments of metal at the arms factories in Liège, returning to Spain in 1839–40 to establish his own gunmaking factory in Eibar in 1841. Zuloaga’s reputation grew in stature throughout the 1840s, with his first royal appointment in 1844 and a silver medal awarded at the Exhibition of Spanish Industry in Madrid in the following year. Within this period Zuloaga assisted Martinez del Romero in his reorganisation of the Real Armería in Madrid, following years of neglect and damage, which led to the completion of the landmark catalogue published in 1849. Zuloaga expanded his role in the armoury to that of restorer of a number of important damascened armours and evidently took this opportunity to expand his knowledge of the historical treatment of metalwork, in particular the ancient Iberian tradition of damascening. Zuloaga’s first royal commission was in fact for a sword, with enamelled and gilt hilt, which he completed sometime between 1846–9, probably in his new factory in Madrid.

The piece in question was a copy of the sword of King François I of France, which he had surrendered to the Emperor Charles V at Pavia in 1525; Zuloaga’s copy is preserved in the Real Armería, Madrid (no. m.4).

The story of Eusebio Zuloaga’s transition from gunmaker to pre-eminent artist, designer and virtuoso metalworker is appreciably complex and as such beyond the scope of this brief outline.

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Zuloaga’s labyrinthine career and salient works, together with those of Plácido, his son and successor in the business (1834–1910), are the subjects of existing published studies. The reader is referred to the two studies by Professor James D. Lavin, foremost scholar on this subject, published in 1986 and 1997 respectively.

The subject of Zuloaga’s conception of the present exhibition sword, an exceptional work, requires some elaboration however. While the exotic character of the sword is as a whole Zuloaga’s own, the principles of the design of the hilt and its scabbard have their origin in the second half of the 16th century, and recall masterpieces of German and Italian design.

The hilt, for example, is somewhat unusually comparable in its constructional details and general iconography, to the magnificent chiselled and damascened iron throne designed

by Thomas Rücker for the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II, completed in 1574. We know that Eusebio Zuloaga never saw the throne in life but it is quite probable that he had illustrations available for study. A related small detail may be of additional significance: the Rücker throne originally had about the base of its legs a series of eight standing figures from Greek mythology chiselled in the round. The throne was looted by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War from the palace in Prague, and in the course of its subsequent travels four of the decorative figures were lost. The late authority John Hayward relates in his published study of the throne that one of these, perhaps Hector or Aeneas, came into the possession of the 19th-century Parisian art dealer Frederic Spitzer (1850–90), and from him passed to the Higgins Armory collection in

Worcester, Massachusetts. The possibility that Zuloaga had seen one of the missing warrior figures is compelling, certainly in view of their shared prominence in both the base of the throne and the vertical quillon of Zuloaga’s hilt. Within Hayward’s same study the present hilt also may be compared to the chiselled iron hilt of a parade sword attributed to Othmar Wetter, now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich.

The treatment of the chiselled and repousée parts of the sword scabbard presents us with an unusually imaginative rendition of scrollwork, the presence of which possibly indicates an early collaboration between Eusebio and his son Plácido. The tightly packed interlace of curves deliberately leaves no flat space between the differing heights of their contours and results in a truly sculpted and almost three-dimensional surface. This quality has been accentuated by the addition of gold wire inlaid along the central course of the higher scrolls, this giving additional prominence to the texture of the surface, from which the figures in their cartouches are projected towards our attention. This highly distinctive technique appears to be a development by the Zuloaga workshops of the decorative embossing of iron perfected by Filippo Negroli of Milan in the mid-16th century. From his earlier experience working with armour in the Real Armería in Madrid, Eusebio would certainly have studied the magnificent helmet made by Negroli for the Emperor Charles V in 1553, in which the skull is embossed and gilt to resemble tightly coifed golden hair.

The Museo Zuloaga holds an original drawing for a design for a burgonet helmet, probably by Plácido, executed in about 1852.

The helmet is of barely imaginable opulence and was possibly from an unfinished parade armour intended for the king consort, Don Francisco de Asis. The design is openly influenced by the 16th-century work of the Negroli workshops and presents all the elements of the scrollwork on the scabbard under discussion. A wax profile sculpture taken from the drawn design for the helmet is one of two modelled by Plácido and preserved in the Real Armería, in the Palacio Real, Madrid. A similar example of Eusebio Zuloaga’s use of this distinctive relief scrollwork, together with the gold wire technique, is found on the scabbard of a dagger by him, now in the Museo Zuloaga, Zumaya. The same is also found as elements of two daggers illustrated in Digby Wyatt’s lithographs of the 1851 Great Exhibition.

Lavin has observed that in the 1867 catalogue of the royal armoury no reference is made to the weapons in Zuloaga’s exhibition panoply, to which we refer within the exhibition history set out at the end of this commentary. He also makes the point that this catalogue includes more than a hundred and fifty acquisitions made over the 126

previous eight years, many of which were of less importance than the Zuloaga arms. Lavin also cites the highly detailed catalogue of 1898, in which again there is no mention of the arms in the panoply. In fact the catalogue omits any reference to percussion arms and to 19th-century edged weapons, while at precisely the same time Laurent was photographing these, made by Zuloaga, in the royal armoury. The conclusion drawn by Lavin is that there is doubt that the pieces in the panoply were ever formally acquired by the Real Armería.

Euesbio Zuloaga was appointed Honorary Gunmaker to Queen Isabella II in 1844 and in June 1856 succeeded his father Blas to the royal appointment of Honoury Chief Armourer to the Real Armería. In view of these credentials and the probable informal privileges associated with his royal commissions and his restoration of the collection, it seems likely that Eusebio may have enjoyed the unique privilege of having a selection of the most elaborate weapons from his stock displayed publicly alongside those of the royal collection, rather than as an accessioned part of it. Alternatively it may have been for extended safe keeping that these valuable works were placed in the royal armoury: the revolution of 1854 had seen street fighting in Madrid in July, and the Zuloaga’s house and factory were attacked by the mob, who stole all of the stock. With the exception of one dagger, now in the Palace of Riofrio near Segovia, the other pieces of the panoply are now dispersed.

Overall length 40¾ in Blade length 32¾ in Exhibited The Real Armería, Madrid. Exhibited not earlier than 1856 and retained after about 1880–90 for an indeterminate period. The sword and its scabbard are included in a panoply of elaborately chiselled and damascened exhibition weapons by Eusebio Zuloaga: comprising two swords, three daggers, a pair of percussion pistols and their accessories. The panoply was photographed in the Armería by Laurent, about 1880, the plate is reproduced in Calvert 1907, pl. 198.

Provenance Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, 9 July 9 1974, lot 129 Private collection, USA

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SPECIFICATIONS AND REFERENCES

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1 A Swiss Knightly Shield Bearing the Arms of Schorpp von Freudenberg, Late 14th Century Of ‘heater’ shape, curving forward at its lower end, it is formed of two layers of wood covered with gessoed parchment and painted on the front with an escutcheon bearing the owner’s arms.

The arms are represented as a black scorpion on a yellow ground, beneath a helm mantled with the same device and surmounted by a red coronet from which issues a swan’s head crest with a gothic B below its beak, all on a dark blue ground decorated with light blue stylised scrolling foliage, and enclosed within a yellow border charged with alternating scorpions and the gothic letter B both coloured black. The rear surface is painted maroon on its left and orange on its right side, and it is pierced with a rectangular pattern of close-set nail holes for the attachment of a pad for the hand and forearm, and furnished with five (originally six) iron nails and rivets for attaching the leather enarmes and a guige, fragments of which survive.

The tips of the nails are concealed at the front by four (originally six) hollow iron bosses. The edges of the shield are chipped at a few points and its surfaces shows some losses.

References

H. Nickel, Der mittelalterlishe Reiterschild des Abendes­ landes, Doctoral Dissertation, Freien Universitäts, Berlin, 1958, passim H. Nickel, ‘Sir Gawayne and the Three White Knights’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, December 1969, pp. 176–81 and figs 4–5, 7–9 H. Nickel, ‘The Seven Shields of Behaim: New Evidence’, The Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 30, 1995, pp. 29–51 passim

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2 An Italian Medieval Sword with an Arabic Inscription from the Arsenal of Alexandria, Early 15th Century, the Inscription Dated 1432 The hilt comprises a large peaked disc pommel and a bare tang of single-hand length. The cross­ guard is relatively short, of square section that tapers gently towards down-turned tips, and features a ring-like branch for the forefinger that curves towards the blade.

The long and straight double-edged blade has a slender fuller upon each face, running approx­ imately a third of its total length. At the top of the blade, near the hilt, is a ricasso that bears a short fuller on each side and there are further incised lines that form an enclosure for the Arabic inscription engraved both on either face and within the main central fuller. A maker’s mark may be seen at the end of the latter on both sides, and the sword is covered with a light surface patina overall.

References

D. Alexander, ‘European Swords in the Collections of Istanbul: Part I, Swords from the Arsenal of Alexandria’, Zeitschrift für Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde, vol. 27, 1985, pp. 81–118 E. Combe and A. F. C. de Cosson, ‘European Swords with Arabic Inscriptions from the Arsenal of Alexandria’, Bulletin de la Société Royale d’Archéologie d’Alexandrie, new ser. 31, vol. 9.2, 1937, pp. 225–46 L. Kalus, ‘Donations Pieuses d’Épées Médiévales à l’Arsenal d’Alexandrie’, Revue des Études Islamiques, vol. x, Paris, 1982, pp. 1–174 E. Oakeshott, The Sword in the Age of Chivalry, Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1964 S. Pyhrr, ‘The Ottoman Arsenal in Hagia Eirene: Some Photographs and Visitors’ Accounts’, Park Lane Arms Fair, London, 2007, pp. 29–46

C. Thomas, ‘The Mamluk Conquest of Cyprus: Pious Donations of European Swords to the Arsenal of Alexandria during the Reign of the Sultan Barsbāy’, Park Lane Arms Fair, London, 2013, sword no. 836. iii, pp. 51–2 M. M. Ziada, ‘The Mamluk Conquest of Cyprus in the Fifteenth Century: Parts I & II.’ Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, 1933, pp. 90–113, and 1934, pp. 37–57

medial ridge, inlaid in copper with a Lombardic m beneath a cross and it is etched at the forte with a linear pattern of imbricated scales.

References

E. Haenel, Kostbare Waffen aus der Dresdener Rüstkammer, Leipzig, 1923, 78, pl. 39a J. F. Hayward, ‘An Italian Renaissance Sword’, Arms & Armour at the Dorchester, London, 1982, pp. 15–17 E. Oakeshott, The Sword in the Age of Chivalry, London, 1964, pp. 71-2, fig. 41 F. Rossi and N. di Carpegna, Armi Antiche dal Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Milan, 1969, pp. 61–2 (ill.)

B. Thomas and O. Gamber, Katalog der Leibrüstkammer, vol. I, Vienna, 1976, pp. 124, pl. 60 P. Williamson (ed.), European Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996, p. 90

3 An Italian Renaissance Hand-and-a-half Sword, circa 1490–1500 The hilt of gilt copper-alloy comprises a flattened pear-shaped pommel rising to a small tang button, and long horizontally recurved flat quillons flaring to rounded spatulate ends and descending at their centre to a pair of short downward-projecting rain guards. Each part is cast and finely chased with running vine leaves, scrolling acanthus foliage, fleurs-de-lis and plaited ornament, inlaid at points with similarly decorated gold and silver panels including at the top of each face of the pommel, in silver, a female bust whose breasts are bitten by serpents. Beneath them is a gaping Medusa’s head from which further serpents arise. The later grip is of octagonal section, tapering slightly to its upper end, decorated with a chequer pattern of freshwater mother-of-pearl and ebony panels separated by longitudinal bone stringers, and it is fitted at its top, bottom and a third of the way below the former with three moulded ferrules of gilt copper-alloy.

The double-edged blade tapers to an acute point, formed at each side with a pronounced

4 A Crossbowman’s Quiver, Italian or German, circa 1540–50 Of biconvex section with convex upper and lower edges, it has slightly concave lateral edges that diverge towards their lower ends. It is formed of wood, covered with black leather tooled between lateral multilinear borders with pairs of lines forming a lozengy pattern enclosing in each of its interspaces a rosette, and overlain at its front and rear with a cusped central panel of boarskin.

The upper end and lower ends of the front are overlain with panels of blued iron attached by rivets, respectively having plain and radially fluted heads. Each panel is formed at its main edge with a boldly roped inward turn, the shorter lower one accompanied at its inner edge by a series of small cusps and the longer upper one extending 133

downwards to meet it in the form of a tapering medial tongue, pierced along its lateral edges with trios of holes and retaining beneath those edges an elaborately scalloped fringe of thin black leather. The tongue is surmounted at its upper end by an applied plaque embossed in high relief with a crowned classical female mask. The sides of the quiver are tooled with geo­metrical patterns of rosettes and quatrefoils, and extend upwards in the form of suspension loops.

References

H. L. Blackmore, Hunting Weapons, London, 1971, pp. 171–205

The broad, gently tapering blade is formed with a central fuller which extends for twelve inches either side of the hilt; the fuller contains a running wolf inlaid in latten on one side and an orb and cross-in-splendour on the reverse.

Inside the fuller an armourer’s mark is stamped in the form a heater-shaped shield, inside which an arrow, above a cross inside a circle, appears in relief. This mark is typical of a number of blademakers producing similar blades in Solingen in the late 16th century.

On each side of the blade the mark is flanked by two numerals, one indistinct, but taken together, the four probably form the date 1574. The sword is in fine condition with pitting commensurate with its age, with a minor old chip to the tip.

References

D. H. Caldwell, ‘Claymores: The Two-handed Swords of the Scottish Highlanders’, Park Lane Arms Fair , London, 2005, pp. 47–53 G. F. Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms, vol. 2, 1920, pp. 302–10, especially p. 304, fig. 684 G. A. Hayes-McCoy, Scots Mercenary Forces in Ireland, Dublin and London, 1937, for historical details

5 A Scottish Highland Claymore, circa 1574 The hilt has downward sloping quillons of diamond section emanating from the base of a high collar, tapering towards their terminals, which are forged from one piece to create their distinctive quatrefoil shapes. Beneath the collar a pair of langets erupt from the base to extend for equal lengths down the blade, either side retaining evidence of fine line decoration extending across the front and sides of each langet. The slightly ovoid pommel is constructed characteristically of two bossed outside plates brazed with latten onto a middle band. The tang protrudes through a crescent-shaped pommel-cap which protected the hollow pommel from damage when the tang was peened over during the assembly of the sword.

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6 A German Sabre, Saxon, circa 1590 The fire-gilt hilt is formed of a copper-alloy pommel cast and chased in relief as a lion’s head and surmounted by a moulded conical button.

The guards are of iron, variously of hexagonal and half-hexagonal section, comprising vertically recurved quillons, the front one forming a sigmoidal partial knuckleguard. Each terminates

in a copper-alloy lions’ heads en suite with the pommel. Below this, a pair of semicircular arms is linked at the outside of their upper and lower ends respectively by a large and a small oval side ring. Each side ring is inlaid at its centre in a circular recess, enclosed at either side by a moulded constriction, with a decorative gilt copper-alloy plaque formed in the case of the upper ring as a lion’s mask. Three inner loop guards diverge from the base of the knuckleguard to the lower ends of the arms, and a curved wooden grip is overlain between three equispaced ferrules of copperalloy with fretted and engraved panels of the same material, depicting within a framework of scrolls various scenes involving male and female figures in contemporary armour and dress.

The long curved single-edged blade is formed with a ricasso and, at its back edge and tip respectively, two narrow fullers and a long false edge. It is finely decorated at the forte with etched and partly gilt foliate scrolls and strapwork on a blackened and stippled ground, involving at each side a crowned double-headed eagle beneath a crown above a shield charged with a lion on the front and a rampant bear on the reverse.

References

G. Gall, ‘Die Entwicklung des Absatzes in der Schuhmode’, Zeitschrift für Historische Waffenkunde, 3rd ser., vol. 13, 1971, pt 1, pl. 10 E. Haenel, Kostbare Waffen aus der Dresdener Rüstkammer, Leipzig, 1923, pl. 57 G. Jaacks, ‘Hamburger “Mode” zu Beginn Dreissigjährigen Krieges’, Zeitschrift für Historische Waffenkunde, 3rd ser., vol. 25, 1983, pt 1, figs 4 and 7 C. O. von Kienbusch, The Kretzchmar von Kienbusch Collection of Armor and Arms, Princeton, nj, 1963, pp.

173–4, pl. ciii A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460– 1820, London, 1980, pp. 117, 222–3 and 333 H. Seitz, Blank-Waffen I, Brunswick, 1965, pp. 348–60, pl. 161 and 264–5

7 A North Italian Close Helmet for the Foot Tourney, Milan, circa 1580–90 The rounded one-piece skull rises to a high roped medial comb, fitted at the nape with a tapering tubular plume holder and at each side, above a large, centrally pierced semicircular boss, with a visor, upper bevor and lower bevor retained by common pivots with radially fluted conical heads. The forward-sloping visor is formed with a prominent step in front of its centrally divided vision slit and fitted at its right with a short lifting peg, replaced, serving additionally as a pull release for a spring-operated safety catch. The prowshaped upper bevor is pierced at the right with nine circular ventilation holes, in rosette formation; the upper and lower bevors are each secured at the right by a swivel hook and pierced stud, and the lower edge of the skull and lower bevor are each formed with a prominent rim, roped en suite with the comb and internally hollowed to lock over and rotate on the turned upper edge of the wearer’s gorget. The whole outer surface was heatblued, now russet, and decorated with bands of etched and gilt ornament on a blackened ground, involving linked fleurs-de-lis of two alternating forms in the bands occupying the faces of the comb, foliate strapwork enclosing pierced stars in those lying immediately to either side of it, and figure-of-eight knots alternating with flowerheads in the bands lying outside of the latter.

References

L. G. Boccia and E. T. Coelho, L’Arte dell’Armatura in Italia, Milan, 1967, pls 382, 386–7, 405–7, 417–20 and 426

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O. Gamber, ‘Der Italienische Harnisch im 16.

Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, vol. 54, 1958, pp. 73–120 K. Maurice, ‘Armour for an Archbishop’, Apollo, vol. xcii, pp. 474–5

8 An Italian Armour for the Foot Tourney by the ‘Master of the Castle’, Milan, circa 1590–1600 The close helmet has a rounded one-piece skull rising to a low roped medial comb; the visor, the upper bevor and the lower bevor are attached to it by common pivots. The visor is formed with a stepped, centrally divided vision slit and the prow-shaped upper bevor is pierced at its upper right edge with two holes formerly serving to secure it to the visor, which is below them. The visor has nine ventilation holes, and at its lower edge a threaded hole to accommodate a wingheaded locking screw. This screw serves to secure it to the underlying lower bevor, the latter in its turn secured to the skull at the right of the neck by a pierced stud and swivel hook, and the lower edges of both elements are formed with internally hollowed rims that allow them to lock over and rotate on the turned upper edge of the gorget; the latter is constructed of four lames front and rear.

The breastplate is of deep ‘peascod’ fashion, fitted at its arm openings with movable gussets and flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive a fauld. The fauld of one lame is cut over the crotch with a shallow arch and fitted, by means of a trio of straps and buckles, with a pair of

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one-piece tassets of trapezoidal form etched to simulate thirteen lames each. The one-piece backplate is flanged outwards at its lower edge.

There is a pair of large symmetrical pauldrons, each of seven lames overlapping outwards from the third, and fully articulated vambraces, associated, are each formed of a tubular turner and upper cannon linked by a winged bracelet couter of three lames to a tubular lower cannon opening at the front. The pair of gauntlets, each formed of a flared and rounded tubular cuff linked via a lower extension lame and a wrist lame to four metacarpal lames, have a shaped knuckleplate, four scaled finger defences and a matching laterally hinged thumb defence.

The main edges of the armour are formed with roped inward turns throughout, and the surface of the entire armour is etched with bands and borders of strapwork interlace, partly bright and partly blackened on a gilt and blackened stippled ground.

Cartouches enclosing classical subjects include, on the breastplate, representations of Poppea and Nero, and on the couters representations of Love and Music.

The decoration of the breastplate includes at the centre of the neck the maker’s device of a tripletowered castle.

References

Anon., ‘The Loan Exhibition’, Arms & Armour at the Dorchester, London, 1982, pp. 52–3, no. 19 C. R. Beard, The Barberini and Some Allied Armours, Privately Printed, 1924, pp. 11-12 L. G. Boccia and E. T. Coelho, L’Arte dell’Armatura in Italia, Milan, 1967, pp. 472 and 480, pl. 408 D. J. LaRocca, ‘A Notable Group of Late SixteenthCentury Etched Italian Armour’, Journal of the Arms and Armour Society, vol. xvi, no. 4, March 2000, pp. 181–97, figs 1–10 J. G. Mann, Wallace Collection Catalogues: European Arms and Armour, vol. i, London, 1962, pp. 69–70, 72, 60–7 and 83–6, pls 41, 46 and 51, nos a 56, 58, 60 and 63 K. Maurice, ‘Armour for an Archbishop’, Apollo, vol. xcii, pp. 474–5 A. V. B. Norman, Wallace Collection Catalogues: European Arms and Armour, Supplement, London, 1986, pp. 29, 32–3 and 36–7, pl. 210, nos a 56, 58, 60 and 63

F. Rossi and N. di Carpegna, Armi Antiche dal Museo Civico L. Marzoli, Milan, 1969, pp. 20, 24–5 and 32, nos 9, 18, 27 and 49 L. Tarassuk, Italian Armour for Princely Courts, Art Institute of Chicago, 1986, pp. 16–19, nos 7 and 9

9 A Pair of German Wheellock Holster Pistols Bearing the Arms of Friedrich Wilhelm I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Administrator of the Saxon Electoral Regency, Maker’s Mark of Christoph Dressler, Dresden, Dated 1596 The barrels are formed in three stages, with swamped muzzles, each cut over its median stage with a pattern of three flutes tapering acutely to join at their base a band of three corresponding recessed circles. The breech sections are framed at both ends by chiselled beaded bands enclosing further bands of small decorative marks, with the date 1596 cut in minuscules, each struck twice with the shield-shaped maker’s mark of Christoph Dressler (Neue Støckel 259), and each struck on the underside of the breech with the barrelmaker’s mark i b (Neue Støckel 3206/3213).

The locks are finished bright, each with engraved guilloche borders and decorated over the greater part of their surface with engraved trophies of war, inspired by the original designs of Hans Vredeman de Vries published in 1572, involving armour alla antica, instruments of martial music and a variety of weapons including wheellock pistols. They are fitted with gilt-brass wheel covers, each engraved with differing trophies of war en suite with the lockplates, and

strips of engraved brass, one restored, cover the paths of the closing pan covers, the latter each having a button release faced by a gilt-brass lion mask cast in relief, and with sliding safety catches and dog-spring bridles each also of gilt-brass.

The fruitwood full stocks are inlaid over their length with a profusion of engraved staghorn plaques on fields of interlaced scrolling tendrils, the latter carrying both ball flowers and conventional flowers. Each has a predominance of birds throughout, including a swan and a heron opposite the lock and an owl forward of the trigger, a demon mask together with a pair of profile grotesque masks about the barrel tang, differing human masks at the rear of each of the ramrod channels, the latter each enclosed by an elongated plaque engraved with strapwork panels of flowers, and the entire inlaid scheme arranged within engraved horn cabled lines and slender panels of border ornament. The ball pommels are decorated en suite with the stocks, each on an engraved silver collar and each inset with a silver roundel engraved with the quartered arms of the Dukes of Saxe-Weimar. They are fitted with giltbrass trigger guards, engraved horn ramrod pipes and fore-end caps, and original wooden ramrods with engraved horn tips; the ramrod pipe, foreend cap, small border plaques and the tip of the ramrod of one pistol are engraved by a different hand, in the Dresden fashion, and certainly within the original period of use.

References

D. R. Baxter, Superimposed Load Firearms 1360–1860, Hong Kong, 1966, pp. 47–9 H. L. Blackmore, Royal Sporting Guns at Windsor, London, 1968, pp. 44–5, pls 4 and 5 M. von Ehrenthal, Führer durch die Kgl. Gewehr-Galerie zu Dresden, Dresden, 1900 E. Heer, Der Neue Støckel, vol. 1, Schwäbisch Hall, 1978 C. O. von Kienbusch, The Kretzschmar von Kienbusch Collection of Armor and Arms, Princeton, 1963 G. Klatte, entries in Churfürstliche Guardie: Die sächsischen Kurfürsten und ihre Leibgarden im Zeitalter der Reformation, exhibition catalogue, Schloss Hartenfels, Torgau, 16 May 2012–31 October 2013, Dresden, 2012, p. 53, pl. 34

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J. Mann, Wallace Collection Catalogues, European Arms and Armour, vol. 2, London, 1962 A. V. B. Norman, Wallace Collection Catalogues, European Arms and Armour Supplement, London, 1986 D. Schaal, Katalog Dresdener Büchsenmacher 16.–18.Jh., Dresden, 1975, p. 26, cat. nos 48–49 J. Schöbel, Princely Arms and Armour: A Selection from the Dresden Collection, London, 1975, no. 102, pp. 157, illustrated p. 167

decorated throughout on a blued ground with silver-encrusted ornament, involving writhen foliate scrolls, guilloche, flowerheads and pellets inhabited at points by winged cherubs’ heads, except on the inner loop guards which bear a herringbone design.

The long slender blade is of flattened hexagonal section formed on each face of its ricasso with a single broad fuller, struck on the outside with the mark of a crowned V, incised on the edges of the ricasso espadero / del rei. Below this the blade has a narrow fuller struck with the name a·n·d·r·e·i·s / m·v·n·s·t·e·n.

References

10 A German Swept-hilt Rapier, circa 1620 The iron hilt is formed of a large spherical pommel with waisted neck and prominent beehive-shaped button. The guards are of circular section, comprising a knuckleguard, long straight quillons, the undersides of which give issue to a pair of semicircular arms linked at their lower ends by a trio of oval side rings that increase both in size and vertical inclination towards the top, a diagonal outer loop guard linking the centre of the knuckleguard to the centre of the uppermost side ring, and three inner loop guards diverging from the same point of the knuckleguard to the lower ends of the arms. The ends of the knuckleguard and quillons each terminate in bud-shaped finials with moulded bases, and the knuckleguard, the arms and the side rings are each interrupted at their centres by spherical mouldings repeated at the outer ends of the upper two side rings, and enclosed in each case by smaller mouldings.

A one-piece tubular iron grip is interrupted at its centre by an oblate spheroid moulding enclosed again by smaller mouldings repeated at its upper and lower ends. All parts are finely 138

A. F. Calvert, Spanish Arms and Armour, London and New York, 1907, pls. 200 and 200A A. R. Dufty and A. N. Borg, European Swords and Daggers in the Tower of London, London, 1974, pl. 26d A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460–1820, London, 1980, pp. 146–9, pls 31 and 47 A. Weyersberg, ‘Die Verschleppung der Waffenherstellung durch Solinger Handwerkdbrüder’, Zeitschrift für Historische Waffenund Kostümkunde, vol. 2, 1928, p. 253 A. Weyersberg, ‘Solinger Schwertschmiede und ihre Erzeugnisse’, Zeitschrift für Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde, vol. 12, 1930, p. 168

11 A French Casket, Laque incrusté, after the Japanese Raden and Nashiji-ko Traditions, circa 1625 The casket is constructed of brass sheets joined by small flush-fitting rivets and encasing a wooden core. It is fitted with brass bun feet and a

moulded drop handle on a pair of engraved calyx base plates. The lid and the base have moulded edges. The interior is now lined in plum velvet.

The external surfaces of the lid and the sides are formed as a series of recessed panels filled with bright red lacquer, mottled at measured intervals with irregularly shaped patches of brown and darkly toned lacquer in the manner of tortoiseshell. All the lacquered surfaces are polished smooth over a densely scattered inlay and underlayer composition of minute fragments of mother-of-pearl, stained bone and lacquer fragments variously coloured red, blue, green, yellow and purple, and with tiny brass stars and flecks of gold wire, all in imitation of the Japanese raden style of lacquer work.

The lacquered surfaces additionally are inlaid with a series of engraved brass plaques, and the key escutcheon is formed as an elaborately pierced panel engraved in the manner of Etienne Delaune, after designs by Johann Theodore de Bry. The lacquered surfaces all lie within a brass flush-fitting framework, the greater part of which is engraved with bands of rinceaux scrollwork formed as continuous meandering tendrils of leafy honeysuckle foliage interspersed with rosettes, probably after the original blackwork designs of Michel le Blon; the engraving is heightened with black pigment, and the basal borders are decorated with imbricated bands engraved bright.

References

Christie’s, London, Antique Arms and Armour, 29 October 1986, lot 96 Christie’s, London, Fine Antique Arms and Armour, 26 October 1994, lot 239 (the catalogue text incorrectly gives the pistol and flask in Dresden as a pair of pistols) M. von Ehrenthal, Führer durch das Königliche Historische Museum zu Dresden, 1899, p. 131 S. V. Grancsay, Master French Gunsmiths’ Designs of the XVII–XIX Centuries, New York, 1970 pp. 43, 45 and 49 E. Heer, Der Neue Støckel, vol. II, Schwäbisch Hall, 1979, p. 1000, mark 8107

H. Schedelmann, Die Grossen Büchsenmacher, Braunschweig 1972, pp. 48–9, colour plate IX J. Schöbel, Princely Arms and Armour: A Selection from the Dresden Collection, London 1975, pp. 160 and 184, no. 126

12 A German Flintlock Breechloading Break-action Sporting Gun for Ball or Shot (Kippbüchse) by George Grebe, Kassel, circa 1690 Decorated throughout after the Brescian manner, with a swamped octagonal sighted barrel hinged beneath the breech, which is released by a catch ahead of the trigger guard that is engaged internally by a hidden locking extension projecting from the breech face. The breech retains its original removable chamber with its pivoted steel and integral pan. The breech is chiselled in low relief with a band of scrollwork panels framing the figure of the goddess Minerva seated beneath a grotesque mask. A chiselled monstrous serpent issues from the decorative pierced base of the back sight, which itself has grotesque masks within an interlace of foliage.

Signed grebe in large chiselled letters within a pierced chiselled scrollwork plaque set prominently into a recessed oval on the upper breech tang; a further serpent is chiselled to the rear of the tang. The back-action lock is chiselled in low relief over its entire surface with a closeset interlaced pattern of scrolling leaves, involving a warrior in combat with a serpentine monster, en suite with the outer plate of the chamber.

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This plate is additionally decorated with a lion, its priming pan cut with a demon mask, and the cock screw chiselled as a further demon mask, its mouth also forming an aperture for a key.

The carved moulded butt and long fore end are each of highly figured Italian curly walnut, the butt cast off, with carved raised cheekpiece and matching sliding patch-box cover. The fore end is carved with scrollwork in low relief behind the ramrod pipe. Full iron mounts are chiselled en suite with the barrel and the lock, including a pierced side plate formed in two parts and involving a serpentine monster, trigger guard decorated with a panel of pierced scrollwork set within an oval recess, and with moulded ramrod pipes, and butt plate engraved with the numeral 23.

The tang of the butt plate extends over the length of the comb in the form of a mythical seaserpent, with a smaller serpent issuing from its jaws. It is inset with a chiselled scrollwork plaque towards the rear, this involving a classical figure, perhaps that of Pan, playing on his pipe and kicking the grotesque head of a man smoking a pipe. Fitted with an iron fore end cap engraved en suite with the muzzle, and retaining its original wooden ramrod with moulded iron tip.

References

H. L. Blackmore, Guns and Rifles of the World, London 1965, nos. 412-3 H. L. Blackmore, ‘Early Breech-loading Firearms’, in Pollard’s History of Firearms (ed.) Claude Blair, Feltham 1983, especially pp. 188–201 N. di Carpegna, Brescian Firearms, Rome, 1997; for examples of Brescian designs which parallel the treatment of the stock and the ironwork on the present gun see pl. XX, fig. 7, pl. XXII, figs 11, 12, 14, and pl. XXXI, figs 7,8 J. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. 2, 1660–1830, London, 1963, pp. 134–5 for the Ettersburg examples and pp. 316–17 for an illustrated explanation of the fully developed break-action system.

E. Heer, Der Neue Støckel, vol. 1, Schwäbisch Hall 1978 A. Hoff, Feuerwaffen, vol. 2, Braunschweig 1969, especially pp. 214–21 J. Lugs, Firearms Past and Present. A complete review of firearms systems and their histories, 2 vols, London, 1973, for the belt pouches, vol. 2, p. 15, pl. 23.

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E. von Schalkhausser, ‘Die Handfeurwaffen des Bayerischen Nationalmuseum', Waffen- und Kostümkunde, 1966, Heft I, p. 9, no. 6

13 A Japanese Face Mask, Ressei Sōmen, circa 1700–20 This iron mask is composed of three elements for the face, nose and brow. The face defence, on which the additional elements are assembled, is constructed from a main plate embossed with deep wrinkles on the cheeks and around the toothless mouth, and extended at the sides into naturalistically represented ears.

A secondary plate, whose rear edge is flanged and pierced for the attachment of a pendant throat defence, is riveted to the underside of the prominent chin. On either side of the jaw line, riveted through supporting washers of quatrefoil outline, are baluster-shaped posts that served to prevent the tying cord of the helmet from slipping forward off the chin. Under the chin a short waisted tube allows perspiration to drain away.

On the cheeks of the mask are a hook and a turning pin by which the nosepiece can be attached. This element is made from a single embossed plate whose lower edge serves as the upper lip of the down-turned mouth when in place. The rather bulbous nose is deeply grooved on either side, with flaring nostrils and wrinkles on its bridge.

The third section, that extends the mask to the top of the forehead, fastens to the upper edge of the mask by concealed hinges with removable pins riveted in front of the ears. This plate is

embossed with eyes, turned up at the outer corners by a small crease, and pierced with large round holes for vision.

On the brow are stylised eyebrows formed as a series of lobes, engraved to represent hair, that terminate at their inner ends in a curl and above which are three deep U-shaped wrinkles. The entire surface is coated with a controlled coating of rust, sabiji. To support the complete mask in wear, the upper edge of this plate is perforated by pairs of holes for sewing to a hood.

References

R. Burawoy, Armuries Du Japon, Paris, 2008 K. Iida, Katchūmen Mononofu no Kasō, Tokyo, 2010 Y. Sasama, Shin Kachushi Meikan, Tokyo, 2000

14 An Italian Breechloading Repeating Flintlock Gun by Michele Lorenzoni, Florence, circa 1700 The sighted smooth-bore barrel is formed in three stages, the breech first faceted, then octagonal and ending in a pronounced baluster moulding across the base. It is struck with a mark formed as the Medici monogram fm and a crown aperta, the mark related to the ownership monograms of Ferdinando III de’Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany (1663–1713). The action frame is formed with a raised sighting groove within a finely engraved acanthus enclosure, engraved with the scrolling mythical figure of a harpy along the upper tang, with engraved small

designs of scrollwork involving monsters’ heads over the respective sides, and shaped to house a brass cylindrical breech block revolving on a horizontal axis.

The breech block with enclosed separate chambers for powder and ball is inscribed firenze on its exposed right-hand side and fitted with an engraved stop; the left-hand side is enclosed by a convex iron cover, and fitted with an operating lever engaging a curved voluted spring catch at the rear. The back-action lock is signed lorenzoni and engraved with the mythical figures of Mercury and Argus, each seated within an Arcadian landscape. Its priming magazine with hinged cover engraved with a bird of prey, and with a rotary charger acting in unison with the rotation of the breech block. The cock and the steel are each chiselled in low relief; the cock retaining screw is chiselled with a demon mask, and the two parts move respectively on selfcocking and self-closing mechanisms actuated by the rotation of the action lever.

Mounted with a highly figured curly walnut butt carved with raised mouldings and drilled with two tubular apertures, for powder and ball respectively. Fitted with iron full-length fore end, the grip is formed as a broadened section, cut with engraved delicate raised mouldings framing scrollwork flourishes expanded upon those engraved about the action frame, together with the figures of Prometheus attacked by the Eagle and Hercules, his saviour. The iron side plate is chiselled as a pierced scroll en suite with the predominant pattern. With engraved iron butt plate with hinged magazine cover released by a spring catch, an iron moulded trigger guard, iron baluster ramrod pipes and retaining its original ramrod.

References

L. G. Boccia, ‘Gli Acquafresca di Bargi’, in Physis, Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza, vol. IX, Florence, 1967, for the Medici monogram see p. 116, fig. 22; for Dolep gun, p. 117, fig. 23. For a survey of the Medici monogram and monogram marks see pp.

114–18, figs 21 and 23

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N. di Carpegna, ‘A Summary of Notes on Central Italian Firearms of the Eighteenth Century’, Art, Arms and Armour: An International Anthology, vol. I, 1979–80, (ed.) Robert Held, Chiasso, 1979, p. 316, fig. 1 and pp. 324–5 Peter Finer Catalogue, 2010: the Acqua Fresca pistols, no.

22, pp. 102–6; Grice pistol, no. 29, pp. 137–42 A. Gaibi, Armi da Fuoco Italiane, Busto Arsizio 1978, for the example in the Bargello Museum see colour pls XXV, XXVI, XXVII and pls 412–3 T. T. Hoopes, ‘The Function of the Perfected Lorenzoni Repeating System’, in Arms and Armor Annual, vol. I (ed.) Robert Held, Northfield, 1973, pp. 216–25 J. F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. 2, London, 1963, pp. 317–20, figs. 3–6 for a further diagrammatic account F. Mazzini et al., L’Armeria Reale di Torino, Busto Arsizio, 1982, m64, p. 98, pl. 16, pls 303–303a-b, p. 389 Hans Schedelmann, Die Grossen Büchsenmacher, Braunschweig, 1972, pp. 176–7, pls 271 and 272

15 A German Hunting Sword, Fromery Workshops, Berlin, circa 1750 The hilt has a grip of oval section tapering slightly towards the base, formed and decorated in the manner characteristic of the Fromery workshops, of white opaque enamel painted with vitrifiable polychrome pigments, and with die-stamped gold foil appliqués fired over selected ornaments pressed in low relief.

The enamelled decoration is planned as a series of gold foil cartouches en rocailles, the larger central cartouches enclosing finely painted hunting vignettes in naturalistic landscape and differing front and rear, illustrating huntsmen in 142

traditional green coats, and the outer cartouche involving a boar hunted with spear. The upper and lower cartouches are filled front and rear with the bust of Diana the Huntress and that of a noblewoman in stylised rustic costume. The grip is decorated over the flanking sides with further pairs of cartouches painted in blue enamels, the lower pair framing hunting trophies involving animal heads in relief covered in gold foil and suspended within polychrome and gilt emblems of the chase, the upper pair framing the goldcovered relief profile busts of two further classical subjects, perhaps Venus and Mars. The upper cartouches additionally involve a trellis pattern characteristic of Fromery, of blue and purple enamels picked out with gilt dots, and the entire decorative scheme is further enriched with small gilt and polychrome flourishes throughout.

The sword is fitted with basal collar, cap pommel, crosspiece and outer guard all of brass cast in relief in the rococo fashion and mercurygilt throughout. The pair of short quillons with opposing dogs’ head terminals are cast in the round, and the outer guard is down-turned over the mouth of the scabbard and formed as a bird of prey.

The tapering blade is double-edged towards the point, cut with broad fullers and decorated with gilt panels of etched trophies at the base.

Etched and gilt scrollwork contrasts against a blued panel over its lower half, the etched designs involving running boar on the outer face and stags pursued by hounds on the inner. The original leather scabbard has a gilt-brass chape and locket, the latter in low relief en suite with the hilt, and it is decorated with a deer on the inside. The outside has a suspension stud and is formed with apertures for extra pieces, these comprising a fork and by-knife each with giltbrass handle and its pommel cast as a lion’s head.

The detailed studies on enamel wares in the catalogues of the Rita & Frits Markus Collection and in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in the references below provide useful and interesting insight into the decoration of our example.

References

C. Blair, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor: Arms Armour and Base-metalwork, London, 1974, esp. cat. no. 52, pp. 154–6 V. S. Hawes and C. S. Corsiglia, The Rita & Frits Markus Collection of European Ceramics and Enamels, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1984, especially cat. no. 92, pp. 254–8, colour pl. xxiii E. Manners, ‘Gold Decoration on French, German, and Oriental Porcelain in the Early 18th Century’, The French Porcelain Society Journal, vol. 4, 2011, pp. 32–3 A. Somers Cox and C. Truman, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Renaissance Jewels, Gold Boxes and Objets de Vertu, London, 1984

16 A French Louis XVI Dress Smallsword and Scabbard, Mounted in Gold, Diamonds and Enamel, Paris, circa 1784 The hilt is formed entirely of gold, finely cast in low relief, with recessed shaped panels filled with royal blue translucent enamel and profusely studded with arrangements of different-sized diamonds throughout. The symmetrical double shellguard is decorated with a matching design on each face, the borders formed entirely of bands of very close-set diamonds diminishing in size towards each end and forming small rosettes at their centres, enclosing kidney-shaped panels enamelled over a raised trellis pattern, studded with small diamonds at the trellis points, and the panels in turn framing an oval of relief scrollwork set with further diamond rosettes. The rear quillon and knuckleguard are each decorated en suite and issue from a cartouche-shaped block cast in low relief, which is decorated on each face with a larger diamond-and-gold rosette

contrasting against an enamel ground, and carrying a pair of enamelled arms seated over the shellguard. The elegant elliptical pommel is diamond-studded en suite with the shellguard, and the grip is bound with a pattern of gold wire and ribbon set between a pair of collars each studded with bands of diamonds.

Mounted with a slender tapering hollow-ground blade of triangular section which, except for the tip, is etched and fire-gilt over all surfaces with an elaborate series of decorative motifs and emblems, including the figure of Victory, emblems of Peace, trophies and a series of repeated Latin mottoes. The majority of the designs contrast within lustrous blued panels over the length of each face. Etched on one face below the hilt is a brief French inscription and on the other face is the cutler’s signature and address written out in full.

The wooden scabbard is covered in white fish skin, with modern full gold mounts expertly replaced exactly in keeping with the original hilt, comprising a locket decorated with a mirrored pattern of alternating bands of burnished gold, enamel and matted gold set with diamonds; the middle band is decorated with burnished bands enclosing a broad enamel band sown with diamonds. The gold chape is inset with an enamelled band, and the uppermost mounts each have a gold ring for suspension. The entire sword is preserved in near-pristine untouched condition. Struck with Paris gold marks, the maker’s mark not legible, and a French 19thcentury gold import mark.

References

P. Jarlier, Répertoire d’arquebusiers et de fourbisseurs français, together with 2e supplement, Saint-Julien-duSault, 1976, p. 123, and 1981, p. 31 P. Lamoureux ‘Les armes de luxe’ in La Manufacture d’armes de Versailles et Nicolas Noël Boutet, Musée Lambinet, Paris, 1993; see pp. 170, 172–3, nos 83 and 84 for Napoleon’s épée du Sacre A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460– 1820, London, 1980; see p. 340 for Charles x ’s sword D. Stürken, ‘Swords of Honour’, Bulletin of the Portuguese Academy of Antique Arms, vol. 2, no. 1, May 2001

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sword and its case are preserved in exceptionally fine untouched condition throughout.

References

17 An English Smallsword with Cased Cut-steel Hilt by Matthew Boulton, circa 1795 The hilt is formed entirely of highly burnished steel, fluted in part and applied with elaborate designs of steel beads cut in imitation of brilliants, both inlaid and carried threaded as openwork designs. The oval shallow guard with fluted base is enclosed by a band of openwork beads diminishing in size towards the centre, and arranged within the border of an outer band as an elaborate radiating pattern segmented by four flowerheads constructed from larger beads.

The openwork grip is arranged as a series of decorative panels interrupted by a flowerhead medallion. The openwork pommel, knuckleguard and rear quillon are decorated with inset panels of beadwork, and the latter two elements give issue to a pair of small arms suspended from their common base. The burnished slender tapering hollow-triangular blade is etched and gilt with scrolls and small trophies on a peacock blued panel at the forte.

In its original wooden scabbard, covered in black shagreen, fitted with a locket and chape also of burnished steel. The locket carries a ring for suspension, and is signed by the cutler, wm. gray bond st., together with the inscription to thine ownself be true. Complete with its original tassel formed of lengths of steel beadwork wound about the knuckleguard and developing to a series of clustered loops. The hilt, in its original fitted lidded wooden case, is shaped in accord with the contours of the hilt, covered in bright red morocco leather and lined in satin. The 144

A. V. B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460– 1820, London, 1980, pp. 388–9 L. Southwick, London Silver-hilted Swords, Leeds, 2001, p. 126 L. Southwick, ‘Matthew Boulton’s Small-sword hilt designs, his links with the London sword trade and new light on cut-steel-hilted swords’, Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, vol. XIX, no. 6, September 2009, pp. 228–9

18 A French Épée de luxe with Gold and Porcelain Hilt, Presented to King Fernando VII of Spain, Goldmaker’s Mark of Antoine-Modeste Fournera, the Presentation Inscription Dated 1816 The hilt is formed entirely of gold inset with white porcelain plaques, and struck with Paris Titre and Garantie marks for 1809–19. It is very finely cast and chased in low relief on a contrasting pounced fish-roe ground. Decorated in the Parisian taste of the early Restoration period, the design involves neoclassical emblems of Sovereignty, Victory and Heroism borne among the corresponding foliage, flowers and further leitmotifs of the period. The pair of voluted quillons issue from an architectural oval base, with bifurcated tips characteristic of the maker, and the knuckleguard is interrupted by a moulding carrying a porcelain oval. The grip is decorated with male espagnolettes about the

base and with wreaths of Triumph surmounting a pair of hexagonal cut-out panels, the latter each inset with the gold figure of Victory on a porcelain plaque front and rear. A single downturned shellguard encloses a cut-out oval filled with a finely drawn gold patriotic vignette plaque minutely detailed in low relief, illustrating a Spanish soldier in a rural landscape arming a rustic ploughman with a musket in the royalist cause, the scene pierced and highlighted against a white porcelain ground. The hilt is completed by a prominent pommel finely sculpted as the helmeted head of Achilles upon patera mouldings.

The blade and scabbard were supplied by the Royal Sword Factory in Toledo. The blade is cut with fullers over the rear and doubleedged towards the point. The greater portion is finely etched and gilt with bands of formalised foliage within a blued panel on both sides. The presentation inscription, in abbreviated Spanish, is engraved on the back: el cpõ gral milic

al rey n.s., rl fab ca de toledo, año de 1816. The remaining length is etched

bright with undulate bands of scrolling foliage.

The original leather scabbard has a gold locket and chape, each decorated in close accord with the hilt, the chape being further decorated with undulate bands en suite with the upper blade. The outer faces of both mounts are cast in low relief on a pounced fish-roe ground, the respective designs on the inner faces chased against a burnished ground, and the locket is cast with a decorated button for suspension.

References

C. Arminjon, J. Beaupuis and M. Bilimoff, Dictionaire des Poinçons de Fabricants d’ouvrages d’or et d’argent de Paris et de la Seine, 1798–1838, Paris, 1991 M. Pétard, Des Sabres et des Épées, vol. 3, Nantes, 2005, pp. 163–4, fig. 400; pp. 172 and 179, figs 447–61 R. de Plinval de Guillebon, Faïence et Porcelaine de Paris, xviiie–xixe siècles, Dijon, 1995, pp. 216–17 for a map illustrating the proximity of the workshops D. Stürken, ‘Swords of Honour’, Bulletin of the Portu­guese Academy of Antique Arms, vol. 2, no. 1, May 2001

19 A Pair of Spanish Percussion Chiselled and Damascened Pistols and their Accessories, of Exhibition Quality, the Workshops of Eusebio Zuloaga, Eibar or Madrid, circa 1847–55 Constructed entirely of steel damascened in gold and silver, the remaining balance of the surfaces blued, the pistols are almost certainly unfired, and the entire ensemble is preserved in near-pristine untouched condition throughout. The pistols are decorated over their complete outer surfaces with a repeating pattern of widely differing warrior subjects in 16th-century dress, all chiselled in low relief, with various dispersed chiselled demon masks and small border ornaments.

The predominant pattern is formed as rows of silver-encrusted lobed cartouches, each framing a warrior contrasting against a gold-damascened inner ground, the cartouches additionally bordered inside and outside by concentric bands of raised gold beadwork, all set within a field of gold-damascened scrolling foliage and flowers, and all arranged between prominent segmental lines of raised silver beadwork. With sighted barrels, the breeches each with a demon halffigure finely chiselled about the lower contour of the percussion bolster, and the actions have no provision for separate lockplates.

The stocks are constructed with separate fore ends and the butts are of two halves joined by three chiselled and damascened screws. They are fitted with large bulbous beaked pommels, with scrollshaped spurs chiselled at the rear with scallop shells and panels of scale ornament heightened

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with minute gold pellets; this pattern is also cut along the ramrod ribs. The ramrod pipes are each decorated with a demon mask. The barrel bolts are also chiselled with scale ornament studded with gold pellets, and each pistol retains its original blued steel ramrod cut with an imbricated leaf pattern picked out with silver pellets.

The accessories are formed in imaginative and elaborate shapes characteristic of Zuloaga and chiselled, damascened and blued en suite with the pistols. They comprise a bag-shaped powder flask with capped nozzle, a bullet mould, a casting ladle, a T-shaped nipple-wrench, a turnscrew and a lidded cap box. The chiselled figural subjects are presented partly in the attitudes of opposing warriors and shown in an expanded range of armours, together with further bearded demon masks and small arrangements of fruit and flowers. The pistols and their accessories are presented in a 19th-century gilt-tooled red leather-covered case, stamped e.castellucci roma with lined and fitted interior.

References

M. Digby Wyatt, Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century at the Great Exhibition, 3 vols, London, 1851–3 S. V. Grancsay, Catalogue of Armor: The John Woodman Higgins Armory, Worcester, 1961 pp. 120–1 J. D. Lavin, The Art and Tradition of the Zuloagas: Spanish Damascene from the Khalili Collection, London, 1997, p. 13, fig. 1; p. 45, fig. 3; p. 47, fig. 4 J. D. Lavin, ‘The Zuloaga Armourers’, Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, vol. xii , no.2, September 1986, p. 72, pl. xxii, the pistol now shown as on the right of the page, pl. xxvi, pls xxvii and xxviii

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20 A Spanish Exhibition Sword and Scabbard, Chiselled, Repoussé and Damascened by Eusebio Zuloaga, in the 16th Century Mannerist Fashion, circa 1850–5 The highly elaborate hilt of blued iron is chiselled in relief and constructed as a framework of ribbon-like bars attached by rivets front and rear; formed as bold looping scrolls with tightly curled ends, their plan is expanded by the addition of matching smaller scrolls, and the hilt is decorated with gold-damascened ornament throughout. The bars and the other flat surfaces are damascened with linear panels of fine running scrollwork tendrils and arabesque patterns respectively, the chiselled scrolls and mouldings heightened where applicable by lines of gold wire, and the figural subjects lavished with gold. The base of the hilt is symmetrical, canted somewhat towards the blade, with outer guard formed with a scrollwork cartouche issuing at its top from the mouth of a gold grotesque mask. The cartouche is supported from the outer ends of the projecting bars by a pair of seated female figures chiselled partly in the round, one the Cardinal Virtue of Justice in the person of Astraea, her scales projected in high relief, the other perhaps Prudence or a Christian Martyr of Córdoba, and the cartouche filled with a Graeco-Roman battle scene in relief, picked out in gold and set against a pounced gold ground.

The inner guard involves a smaller cartouche formed without supporters enclosing the chiselled figure of a cherub, and the rear quillon is acutely angled towards the blade and decorated with the

vertical figure of Hercules standing in high relief on a platform at its tip.

The leading quillon is extended vertically as a more complex arrangement of bars, rising to the figure of Achilles chiselled entirely in the round and with a vacant oval escutcheon fitted at the base. The iron grip is chiselled with an elaborate basal moulding in the manner of an architectural 16th-century Composite Order capital, cut with four elongated cartouches, the outer enclosing the figure of Minerva, the inner with the female personification of Faith, and those at the sides filled with damascened arabesques. The pommel is formed as a series of small scrollwork cartouches each filled with damascened arabesques, with a pair of chiselled Pegasus busts emerging left and right, and retained by a prominent domed cap with damascened button.

The blade is polished bright and richly decorated with a bright undulating pattern of spirals of foliage within a pounced matted gilt panel on both sides at the forte, and the back edge is lightly cusped towards the tip. Its blued iron scabbard is formed of two halves, the greater parts of each side flattened and matted in imitation of fine leather, damascened with gold lines down the lengths of the edges and with very finely damascened gold arabesque panels top and bottom on each face. Both ends of the scabbard are decorated with contrasting panels of chiselled and repoussé neo-Mannerist relief designs of tightly packed interlaced scrollwork, accentuated by gold wire contours throughout. The relief panels at the throat are dominated centrally by figures chiselled in high relief and heavily damascened in gold.

On the outer face is a male figure in neoclassical dress, on the inner face the female personification of Fortitude; each is placed above a gold-lined cartouche of scrolls suspended within the overall design, these in turn involving child figures on each face, bearing the attributes of Triumph, a wreath and a libation jug respectively. The relief panels at the tip match those above but are dominated at their centres by less prominent figures contrasting against spaces in the scrollwork lined in pounced

gold, one perhaps Hercules and the Nemean lion, and the other a warrior, perhaps Ares, god of war.

References

A. F. Calvert, Spanish Arms and Armour, London and New York, 1907 M. Digby Wyatt, Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century at the Great Exhibition, 3 vols, London, 1851–3 J. F. Hayward, and W. Rieder, ‘Thomas Rücker’s iron chair’, Waffen- und Kostümkunde, 1976, Heft 2, pp.

90–1, fig. 5

J. D. Lavin, ‘The Zuloaga Armourers’, Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, vol. XII, no. 2, September 1986, pp. 85 and 87, p. 88, pls xxv and xxi respectively J. D. Lavin, The Art and Tradition of the Zuloagas: Spanish Damascene from the Khalili Collection, London, 1997, pp. 50–1, figs 7a–b, fig. 8

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Books for Sale We deal in the rarer out-of-print books and a list of some of our current titles is set out below. These are generally for the advanced collector or serious bibliophile. We are always interested in purchasing either entire libraries or rare single volumes.

C. Boissonnas and Jean Boissonnas, Alte Waffen aus der Schweiz, Paris and Berlin, 1914.

Charles Claesen, Recueil d’ornements et de sujets pour être appliqués à l’ornementation des armes d’après les dessins des principaux artistes, Liège, 1856.

James Drummond, Ancient Scottish Weapons, Edinburgh and London, 1881.

C. Gilot, Nouveaux Desseins D’Arquebuserie, Paris, circa 1700.

Sir G.F. Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms through Seven Centuries, 5 volumes, London, 1920-22, (sold with the following volume) F.H. Cripps-Day, A Record of Armour Sales 1881-1928, London, 1925.

James Logan, The Clans of the Scottish Highlands, 2 volumes, London, 1845.

Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, The Crossbow, London, 1903.

Joseph Skelton, Engraved Illustrations of Ancient Armour from the Collection of Sir S R Meyrick at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire, 2 volumes, London, 1830.

O. Smith, Det Kongelige Partikulpere Rustkammer I. København, 1938.

Dr. H. Stöcklein, Meister Des Eisenschnittes, Esslingen, 1922.

O. G. Trapp, Die Churburger Rüstkammer, London, 1929.

For in-print books on military history and arms and armour we recommend Ken Trotman Limited, P.O. Box 505, Huntingdon, PE29 2XW, England.

Contact Richard Brown on: +44 (0) 1480 454292 or fax: +44 (0) 1480 384651 or email: enquiries@kentrotman.com. Website address: www.kentrotman.com

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The Cataloguing Team ian d. d. eaves, fsa, is a freelance consultant specialising in arms and armour. He

was formerly Keeper of Armour at the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London where he worked for eighteen years. In 1993 he was awarded the Arms and Armour Society’s medal for services to the study of arms and armour. In March 2007 he was elected lifetime VicePresident of the Arms and Armour Society. For over thirty years he has written widely, and many of his research articles published in the Journal of the Arms and Armour Society remain the definitive text on the subject.

nicholas mccullough, is also a freelance consultant specialising in arms and

armour and has specialised in the subject commercially since 1978. From 1982 he has been employed by both the auctioneers Christie’s and Sotheby’s, in London, New York and Zurich, with responsibility as Head of Department for their respective auctions of antique arms and armour. In 1987 he received a research award from the Kinnucan Arms Chair at the Cody Firearms Museum, Wyoming.

clive thomas, mistc, is a writer and an artist specialising in historical illustration.

A lifelong interest in history spawned his particular passion: works of the medieval period on which he is an acknowledged expert. He specialises in swords of the period and is currently researching material for a forthcoming book on the swords from the Arsenal of Alexandria.

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Our Terms of Business Every item in this catalogue is for sale, all sales are made on a first come first served basis.

We will not reserve any item, but will send further photographs on request if required and we welcome your enquiries. All the items described in this catalogue are guaranteed to be genuine antiques and of the period stated.

US and Canadian callers should note that when using our 1 800 270 7951 number they will be answered by a 24-hour telephone answering/fax machine. Please send a fax or leave a message and we will respond as soon as possible. Alternatively you can contact us by email: gallery @peterfiner.com.

We are always interested in purchasing single items or complete collections of antique guns, pistols, swords, armour and cannon, or taking goods on consignment. Our terms for selling are half those charged by the leading auction houses.

OUR BANKERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Adam & Company plc 22, King Street, London sw1y 6qy Account Name: Peter Finer Sort Code: 83–91–36 Account Number: 14492400 OUR BANKERS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA J. P. Morgan Chase Bank, na 270, Park Avenue, 42nd floor New York ny 10017 Account Name: Peter Finer Account Number: 817710007 A.B.A. / Routing Number: 021000021 Swift: CHASUS33 WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS

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Fine Art & Antique Fairs at which we shall be exhibiting in 2014 The 60th Winter Antiques Show at which we have exhibited since 1993, runs from Friday 24 January to Sunday 2 February. The show’s preview, with a benefit for the East Side House Settlement, will take place on Thursday 23 January, call 718 292 7392 for information or visit www.winterantiquesshow.com. It is held at the Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City.

The American International Fine Art Fair runs from Wednesday 5 February to Sunday 9 February. A preview event is being held on Tuesday 4 February, call 239 949 5411 for information or visit www.aifaf.com. The fair is held at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida.

The Miami Art and Design Show runs from Friday 14 February until Tuesday 18 February.

A preview event is being held on Thursday 13 February to benefit the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, call 239 949 5411 for information or visit www.miamiartanddesign.com.

The show is held at the Bayfront Park Pavilion, Miami.

The Palm Beach Jewellery, Art and Antique Show runs from Saturday 15 February until Tuesday 18 February. A preview event is being held on Friday 14 February, call 561 822 5440 for information or visit www.palmbeachshow.com. The show is held at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida.

The European Fine Art Fair, tefaf, is held at Maastricht in Holland, and runs from Friday 14 March to Sunday 23 March. A preview event is being held on Thursday 13 March, call +31 411 64 50 90 for information or visit www.tefaf.com. The fair is held at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre), Forum 100, 6229 GV Maastricht.

Masterpiece London runs from Thursday 26 June to Wednesday 2 July. A preview event is being held on Wednesday 25 June, call +44 (0)20 7499 7470 for information or visit www.masterpiecefair.com. The fair will be held in the South Grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

We then return to New York in October for The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show, at which we have exhibited since its inception in 1989; again it is held at the Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City. The show runs from Friday 17 October until Thursday 23 October. A Gala Benefit Evening for the Society of Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center will be held on Thursday 16 October, call 212 642 8572 for information or visit www.haughton.com.

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Š Peter Finer mmxiii Editor: Dr Paula Turner Photography: Christopher Challis Design: David Bonser.

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